Hunters
by WynCatastrophe
Summary: With Obi-Wan in the clutches of galactic criminal Granta Omega, Anakin must forge new alliances for the Jedi in order to save his master and restore peace beyond the Outer Rim. Obi-Wan, Anakin, Yoda, others.
1. Chapter 1

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction, which is shared for entertainment purposes only.

Author's note: Part six of the Freefallverse, but can be read alone. For those who may be interested, the other five novels and several assorted works are available both here on ffn and also on my LJ account under WynCatastrophe.

**CHAPTER ONE**

The drugs throbbed in his brain, an odd reverberating effect Obi-Wan tried to isolate and expunge using the Force. So far it wasn't working, but Obi-Wan kept trying. It wasn't like he had anything else to do –– except worry, which wasn't productive.

He couldn't quite keep himself from doing a little of that, anyway. He was trapped in the clutches of Granta Omega, which did not speak well for his prospects. Anakin and Ryn were back on Fjornel, trying to keep the whole terraformed moon from dying and taking all the inhabitants with it. At least, he _hoped_ they were still on Fjornel. Repeated attempts to find them through meditation had given him nothing but a headache. But what he knew about the two of them was not reassuring. Of the two, Ryn was probably the more level-headed ... but then, she had a value system very different from the Jedi, and who knew what she might think was a good idea? And Anakin, despite his independent streak, was more often than not willing to follow her lead. Sarta was with them, but Obi-Wan wasn't sanguine about Loreth's prince as a steadying influence. And Gunryth, aside from being a practicing heretic, was an unknown quantity.

One thing he was reasonably sure of was that they were no longer traveling through hyperspace. The telltale vibrations that accompanied such travel had ceased some time ago, with a last shudder that might have been landing. In which case, they must be sitting somewhere on the far side of the Outer Rim - but for what purpose,Obi-Wan could not begin to imagine.

He missed Qui-Gon with an ache that was almost physical in its potency.

_Rejoice for those around you who transform into the Force,_ Yoda's voice reminded him. _Mourn them do not, miss them do not._

_ Yes, Master Yoda. _

_ Qui-Gon's defiance, I sense in you ..._

[]

They strode out of the Temple of the Living Force like they owned the place, Ryn leading. After they had bowed and given their sincerest thanks to the Healers, Anakin had half-expected to be detained somehow. His knowledge of Lorethan culture was limited at best, but he doubted whether even here their plans to stage a coup would pass without comment. But the Temple acolytes asked them no questions, and when Ryn thrust aside the wooden doors set into the mountainside - a side entrance, not visible from the glen below - and stepped out onto the narrow trail that led down through the glistening rocks and disappeared into the trees, Anakin and Evinne and Makesh fell into step behind her as though it had always been meant to be. Sarta and Gunryth returned to the transport and headed for Fjornel to muster the Rangers.

They were making for a village, some five leagues north (according to Ryn, but this gave Anakin only a very hazy idea of the distance involved), presided over by some of her mother's kin, who apparently lived in the local fort.

"Distant cousins," she said, "but it won't matter. They are bound to give aid to travelers. We will ask for no more than we need."

"Will you ask for warriors?" Evinne asked moodily. "Because we might be needing those."

"I pledged you the help of my own Clan, not of all the North," Ryn answered sharply. "We can take Stevan without their warriors, and we will." Pause. "They'd be fools to go with war with us."

"Then why are we going?" Anakin said.

Evinne snorted; Ryn sighed. "Because the sea crossing at Enysvran is some hundreds of miles from here. We could scarcely reach it in a week on foot. We need steeds in order to cover the ground quickly. The accepted mode of travel here is sleipniri. I hope to get some of those for our journey."

_Okay. Stick to basics. _ "What are sleipniri?"

"Eight-legged mammals commonly used for riding," Evinne said over her shoulder. "They are very fast."

"If we push hard, we should be able to make Enysvran in three days, maybe two and a half," Ryn added, waving a hand north and west. "We'll have to leave the sleipniri with Eremais Mabonar once we reach the port, and trust him to see them home. Then we take ship, cross the sea, and get fresh sleipniri on the other side."

"Because they'll just be waiting for us?" Anakin said.

Ryn shook her head, either missing his sarcasm or willfully ignoring it. "Ruwan Ardel keeps a house not far from the port. He should be wiling to help us."

Anakin kicked a stone out of his path. "Not if we tell him what we're doing."

"So we won't."

Anakin frowned. This was a side of Ryn he had never seen before, and he wasn't sure he liked it. There was something a little chilling about her ruthless practicality. It was going to prove effective, probably ... but was it right?

Evinne didn't seem concerned, though this was her relative Ryn was planning to dupe. If anything, she appeared mildly amused by Ryn's answer.

_So many it's a cultural thing,_ Anakin thought uncertainly. _Maybe you have to be raised here to get it._

Unstoppable as the wind, Ryn led them on.

[]

Obi-Wan had lost track of time in that changeless place before Granta Omega came to gloat over him. The door of his cell slid back and standing in the opening was not the protocol droid who brought him meals but a nondescript man with shaggy brown hair and angry eyes.

"Obi-Wan Kenobi," the man greeted him. He made the name a mockery.

"Granta Omega," Obi-Wan acknowledged him, declining to respond in kind.

"I trust your stay has been pleasant?"

"Quite the reverse, I assure you," Obi-Wan returned evenly.

Omega tutted. "I'm so sorry to hear that. You grieve me, Master Kenobi, you really do."

There was no point in dignifying that with an answer; Obi-Wan waited.

Predictably, Omega's patience broke first. "Perhaps you would care for some news of your apprentice?"

"If you have any."

Omega's smile made his skin crawl. "I hear he's doing quite well for himself - though maybe not for the Code. I'm told he is indulging his passions in the most unbridled way."

Obi-Wan lifted an eyebrow. "I didn't know there were any podracing circuits out here."

Omega faked a laugh, not very well. "Podracing! My dear Obi-Wan, I speak of the pleasures of the flesh! Your innocent young Padawan has fallen to the charms of a barbarian temptress." He shook his head in mock sympathy. "These young men are so easily led."

"Anakin will come for me," Obi-Wan answered with certainty.

Another laugh, not quite as fake. "Master Kenobi, _Anakin_ is currently traipsing about the surface of Loreth, following the whims of the woman who holds him in thrall. I fear you underestimate the power of desire - or perhaps you _over_estimate his loyalty to you."

Omega must have thought that was an exit line, because he took a step backward and slid through the opening doorway. It shut behind him without a sound.

_Barbarian temptress? Anakin, what are you doing?_ He thought of Bridein, stepping naked into the tub with the boy, and frowned at the wall. _Be mindful, young Padawan._


	2. Chapter 2

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: Yes, I know, at the end of Tangle I said that Evinne was not coming down to the planet with them. But then I realized what a convoluted plot that would entail, because I'd have to send them back up to get her, and then back down AGAIN, and ... yeah. It just didn't make sense. Forget I did that. *handwaves* I never did that ...

**CHAPTER TWO**

They hit a second narrow track near the foot of the mountain that led over a low saddle between the next two hills and down into the valley beyond (or so Evinne and Ryn both claimed).

"It's still a fair climb for this hour of the day," Evinne said. "But it's the quickest way to the dun. We can make it before good dark, if we push."

Ryn took point again, leading them between and around obstacles and occasionally hacking away at the undergrowth that intruded on the path by means of the long knife she'd been carrying stuck through her belt.

_Lorethan war-gear,_ Anakin thought, and watched, mesmerized, as the sheer grace of his companions manifested itself.

He'd grown used to Ryn; seeing her in her native environment was something of a revelation. He was beginning to see how she fit, and how she didn't. He could sense the way she was quieter than everyone around her, so self-contained. She was smaller than the others, too - both shorter and slighter of build. On Coruscant, she'd been about average height for a human female, though a little leggy in her proportions; here, Anakin had yet to meet an adult who didn't outstrip her in size.

No wonder Evinne called her _Shorty_.

But there was something about the energy of the place that suited her. Something deep and strong, something _steady_. In its own way, Loreth felt like Ryn herself. She _belonged_ here, as Evinne and Makesh belonged here, as the bare winter trees who spread their branches overhead belonged here, and as Anakin did not. He could feel the ripples his presence caused, a dissonant note where all else was in harmony.

Ryn had complained before, that Coruscant felt too _busy_, all the time. Anakin was beginning to understand what she meant. He thrived on the city-world's energy, the sense of life humming all around ... but for a child of Loreth, accustomed to the rhythms of this still place, the abundant energy that was the quiet song of deep woodland and not the buzz of sentient minds ... surely Coruscant must seem a world without rest.

He stayed just behind her right shoulder, matching her relentless pace as Evinne and Makesh jogged behind. She didn't say anything, and Anakin wasn't sure how to ask all the questions that crowded his mind, so he kept his mouth shut and kept moving.

[]

They called a brief halt at the far side of the saddle to get their breath and their bearings.

"It's not much farther," Evinne panted, leaning against a tree. "Maybe three or four miles. You can see the woodsmoke, over there." She pointed out past a fold of the land; Anakin could just make out the thin gray-white tendrils against the fading sky.

"Good," Ryn said. "It's mostly downhill from here. We should be able to make it in fifteen minutes."

Evinne groaned and pushed herself upright again. "You're a hard woman, Areth'ryn."

"We can rest when we get there," Ryn answered, unimpressed.

They jogged on.

[]

Anakin was surprised, despite the rustic nature of the Temple of the Living Force, to see the village they were visiting surrounded by a wooden palisade.

"Even the Wookiees are more high-tech," he muttered, and got an admonishing glance from Evinne in return. Ryn and Makesh ignored him.

The gates stood open, so the four travelers walked slowly in, hands held up, palm outward, in token of peace.

A gaggle of children immediately formed a semicircle around them; the adults hung back, more wary of strangers. Ryn stood still, just inside the gate, and waited, with Anakin and Evinne and Makesh crowding behind, until a burly man a little less than Obi-Wan's age thrust his way forward through the ring of children.

"Greetings, Strangers," he said. Anakin strained to make out his Lorethan dialect. "What are your names?"

"I am Areth'ryn Orun," Ryn reported steadily. "And these are Aesin'Evinne ARdel, Makesh Aravel the Disinherited, and Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker, my friend and swordbrother. We come on an errand to your lord. Will you take us to him?"

The man scowled. "It's our lady, now," he said. "Arvan died, some months back. It's his wife keeps us, these days."

"Then pray take us to her," Ryn said. "We are in some haste."

The man turned and shouted over his shoulder to one of the youngsters standing behind him: a lad of maybe ten or eleven years jumped to attention. "Take them."

The boy led them through the village full of round earth-and-wood huts and up a slope to a house larger than the others, built in an elongated shape with sides that curved up and down rather than from side to side, forming a pointed arch at the apex of the roof. He preceded them to the large double doors at one end and announced them to the two guards; Anakin's growing competence with the native tongue was still insufficient to follow the introduction well, but he guessed from Ryn's stiff posture that it was not flattering.

There was another delay while one of the doorwardens stepped inside to relay the news of their presence. Anakin could not fathom the logic of such a custom, but now seemed a poor time to ask. Then the doors were flung open, without warning, and the doorwardens escorted them inside.

The interior of the house was dark, and smoky from both torches along the walls and a fire at one end, poorly ventilated. Its light gleamed dully on aurodium, inlaid along the carved pillars that marched down the center of the hall in a wide double row, forming an aisle between.

At the far end of the hall, opposite the fire, sat a fair-haired woman in a large throne-like chair, carved to match the pillars. She rose to meet them, and Anakin saw that she was tall, perhaps as tall as Mace Windu; and her face and figure were stern. "I am Hedfren," she said. "Enter and be welcome, if you come in peace."

"Peace be upon this house, and all who dwell in it," Ryn answered, striding forward. "I am -"

"The doorward told me your names." Hedfren managed a slightly strained smile. "I am told also that you wished to speak with me. What have you to say?"

Ryn pressed the palms of her hands together and bowed over them, in the Lorethan fashion; Anakin watched the other two of the corner of his eye as they all followed suit. "We are journeying to a weaponstake at my home, far to the North. The case is urgent, and we ask of you food and steeds to reach the nearest seaport, that we may continue our journey."

Hedfren gazed long at her. "The times are hard," she said, "and we have little to spare for strangers."

"I know," said Ryn. "We would not ask if the need were not great."

"This weaponstake, what is its purpose?"

Ryn waved Evinne to silence without looking. "The Padawan's master has been captured by a criminal wanted in the Republic who has been known to have dealings with Stevan Ardel. We intend to muster our forces and root out this criminal to recover Master Kenobi."

Anakin noticed that she left out any mention of Kit; he clenched his jaw and made a mental note to add it to the list of things he would have to discuss with her _later_. (_Later_ was looking like a very long conversation.)

Hedfren, meanwhile, was less than impressed. "There are some who would say the troubles of the Jedi are no concern of ours."

"They are a concern of mine," Ryn answered succinctly. "And the Jedi who gave his life in our defense more than two years ago gave no thought to whether our troubles were his."

"I hear what you say," Hedfren acknowledged. "But you ask much."

"I trust your generosity," Ryn said, unfazed. "The name of this house is a good one." She tilted her head to one side and looked closely at Hedfren. "What was your father's name?"

"Hedran."

"I thought as much. I am too young to have met him, but I have heard tell of his deeds." Her pause felt _significant_; Anakin wondered how she did that. "He rode with my father at Forsai."

"Your father must have been a boy then."

"He was sixteen," Ryn said. "But he remembered the strong arm of Hedran the War-Shield." She stepped forward and held out a hand. "Ride with me, Hedfren. Let the Lords of the North rise again. Together we can save a Jedi."

Hedfren hesitated. "I cannot myself go with you," she said at last. "My pride would urge me to do as you ask, but pride without duty is false. My place is here, with my people. Yet for any in my house who choose to go, I will not bid them stay. And you may have the steeds for your journey."

Ryn bowed. "Thank you, Hedfren daughter of Hedran. Truly you have kept your father's name."

"In the meantime," Hedfren said, no more impressed with flattery than intimidation, "I beg you will partake of our hospitality. Doubtless you are in need of refreshment. The maidens of the house will tend you. After the evening meal you can make your case to the warriors."

Ryn bowed again, and Anakin tried to copy the others as they fell in behind her. "Again, we thank you."


	3. Chapter 3

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Author's note: special thanks to my LJ f-list, who offered their feedback and support as I worked through this exceptionally long and dense chapter.

**CHAPTER THREE**

The scene that followed was practically a repeat of the bath Bridein had presided over the night they arrived on Fjornel, except that this time Evinne and Ryn weren't led away, and Engine and Obi-Wan weren't there to take the pressure off. And this time, the two girls stood together and shooed the maidens of the house off. There was a lot of raucous laughter about keeping such fine men to themselves, but Anakin suspected they were really trying to protect his Jedi modesty. Evinne, at least, seemed mildly amused by the affair. But she backed Ryn up when she made her request for them to be left in peace, and she stood in the doorway, looking improbably beautiful and unassailable, nobody to mess with, until the young women bowed and took their leave.

Bathing in front of Ryn should have been easy - they'd showered together already, after all - but the extra shielding the Healers had imposed on them made her somehow fuzzy: _there_, but unreachable. The chief Healer, a gray-haired woman called Gundemarr, advised them that the effects should wear off in two to three days. In the meantime, it felt very strange to sense the others as warm eddies of energy, without picking up on their individual feelings. Ryn was the worst, probably because she was shielded too. And stripping in front of Makesh really wasn't hard ... but Evinne was another story. And she was _definitely_ peeking.

_Luminous beings are we,_ Anakin reminded himself, and shucked his pants. _Not this crude matter._

Evinne was making it more difficult than necessary. She seemed to take special pleasure in making him blush; he wasn't sure whether it was some sort of sadistic impulse, or if this was just her perverse way of being friendly. She kept teasing him to strip, and when he finally started to fold his pants with his back to her, she let out a low chuckle for his modesty and tugged at his arm, turning him to face her. _Luminous beings,_ Anakin reminded himself sternly, forcing himself to meet her stare. "C'mon, give us a peek."

_Luminous beings!_

Anakin was so distracted by how hard he was trying not to let his gaze roam all over Evinne's perfect body that he hardly noticed her delighted laugh at the blush he failed miserably to hide. She made a show of letting her gaze trail down.

"Mmmm. Very pretty." She tapped his burning cheek lightly. "No wonder Ryn is so keen on you. But ... forgive me, is that still painful?"

Anakin stared at her in confusion, but at least the skepticism in her voice was dampening his inconvenient arousal. "What?"

Evinne tilted her head to one side, regarding him in some confusion, awkward for the first time since he'd known her. "Ah ... you ..."

"You've been cut," Ryn intervened, breaking into their conversation with the curiously uninflected tone she reserved for painful topics. "It's standard practice for the Jedi," she added, to Evinne. "I don't know about the rest of the Republic." She straightened from adding heated water to her own bath and faced Anakin. "She's trying to ask about your ... ah ... surgery?"

A half-step late Anakin got it, and then he wished he hadn't. The indignity flew all over him, a wave of humiliation so intense it turned his stomach.

"I'm sorry," Evinne said quickly. "I shouldn't have asked. It's just I ... we don't ... I've never ..." Her hands fluttered helplessly and finally settled on his chest. "I think you're very beautiful," she added worriedly.

Ryn sidled up next to them, naked and anxious, and gave his shoulder a little squeeze. "Hey," she said gently. "It's okay."

_It is so not okay,_ Anakin thought, but then he realized she was speaking to Evinne.

"It's okay," Ryn repeated, staring the other girl down, and Evinne took a reluctant step back, releasing him.

"Okay," she said warily. "If you don't want to talk about it ... okay. But if you change your mind – if you need anything – just tell me. Yeah?"

Anakin nodded hesitantly, still not quite sure what was going on here. The only thing that stood out certain and unattainable was the desire to be left alone.

"And ... I'd take you in a heartbeat," she added in a cheeky rush. "But Orun would probably beat me to a pulp."

"I'm going to beat you anyway if you don't get a move on," Ryn said with good-natured impatience. "Go take your bath."

She watched until Evinne climbed into the tub of steaming water, all long legs and lush curves – _Force_, she looked good – and nudged Anakin with an elbow. "Sorry about that. Are you okay?"

Anakin glared at her. "What do you think?"

Ryn sighed. "I guess not. I can't blame you for being angry. But in Evinne's defense, she was trying very hard to be nice."

"_Nice?_"

Ryn bit her lip, looking down – not at him, but at the patterned flagstones that tiled the floor. "Genital mutilation is ... a very strong tabu, for us."

"_Mutilation?_" Anakin gasped, too outraged to form a sentence.

"I'm sorry," Ryn said. "What do _you_ call it?"

_Force._ She was serious. Anakin grabbed a towel to cover himself – not that it did much good at this point – and said, "Circumcision!" The sheer insult of it all made him add, stiffly, "It is a medical procedure."

"Ah ... yes," Ryn said. "Circumcision." He didn't need the Force to see that she was skeptical. She gnawed her lip for a moment and then asked, "The Jedi did this, or your mother?"

Anakin closed his eyes. "The Jedi."

"That must have hurt."

The memory still made him sick to his stomach. "Yeah."

"The _ylfe_ did that, once. To their women, not their men. The practice was forbidden centuries ago, but ... we have not forgotten."

"Who or what are the _ylfe_?" Anakin asked.

"The native inhabitants of this planet," she answered cautiously. "The ones Loron found when he came here, over a thousand years ago."

"Where are they now?"

Ryn bit down on her lower lip, hard enough to mark it white. "We do not speak of it to Outsiders," she warned. "I trust you, but the Jedi must not know."

"_I_'m a Jedi."

"You know what I mean. You can't say anything, even to Obi-Wan."

"I can keep a secret."

Ryn shook her head once, sharply. "Swear it."

"I swear to reveal nothing of what you tell me."

Ryn regarded him closely, testing him as Gunryth had done days before. Then she bowed her head in acquiescence. When she looked up again, her eyes were rueful. She spread her arms. "They are here."

Anakin looked around the room, not understanding.

Ryn shook her head at him and laid one hand against her bare chest, over her heart. "_Here_."

"Oh." The realization took longer than it should have to sink in. "You mean _you_ ..."

"Yes."

"But ..." He floundered. "You look so human."

"Do I?" She took a step back from him and stood glistening in the firelight. "Do I really?"

Anakin couldn't stare at her like that. Everything was still too raw between them. He averted his eyes. "You look human to me."

Ryn let her arms fall to her sides and stepped closer again. "I can pass. But when was the last time you saw a human with skin this pale? Or hair this dark?"

Anakin still couldn't look at her. "Is that where you get your ... um ... pheromones?"

"And strong sexual urges? Yes." Ryn hesitated. "We thought I had not inherited the _ylfe_ tendencies after all. That I was ... safe."

Something in the way she said that ... "You're not pureblood."

"No," she agreed sadly. "There are no true _ylfe_ left. The old blood grows thinner each year. But it runs strong in my family. Stronger in Kit than in me."

_My best friend is an alien. I've known her over half a year and she never said a thing._ Anakin fought off the sense of betrayal to focus on the question at hand. "What does this have to do with circumcision?"

Ryn sighed. "This is going to be a long story."

Anakin stared at her, exasperated. "Then why bring it up?"

Ryn didn't quite wince. "I think you have a right to know. But ... let me tell you tonight. When we're not naked and no one else is listening."

"Fine," Anakin growled, still surly.

"Come find me when the beds are laid in the hall," Ryn said, backing away toward her own tub. "I will be waiting."

She faded away into the soft haze of shadows and steam.

* * *

Ryn stuck her head out once everyone was dressed and informed the waiting servants tah they were done bathing. The girls cast them some curious looks as they entered, especially at Anakin; but Ryn and Evinne stared them down in stony-faced unison, forbidding figures despite their obvious youth, and no one said anything. Makesh ignored everyone equally, so at least he was fair.

"Listen," Evinne said, sotto voce as they followed a veritable procession of young women up the hill to the main hall, "I want to apologize for my reaction, back there. It's none of my business how the Jedi handle such ... intimate ... matters. In sex as in battle, it's not the weapon you choose, it's how you wield it." She caught a good lock at Anakin's shocked and expression and winced. "Oh. Too ... earthy?"

"Just ... very blunt," Anakin choked. He had to wonder whether it were possible to receive any permanent injuries from excessive blushing.

"Sorry," Evinne said. Contrition looked odd on her normally confident features. "I ... uh. I'm not used to caring what anyone thinks."

"Why start now?" Anakin inquired bitterly.

Evinne shrank a little. "I don't have many friends," she admitted quietly. "But I do understand the importance of allies. Of loyalty. And I may have much to atone for, on behalf of my clan. I would not add to that debt."

It took him a minute to figure out what she was saying. "You're not responsible for your brother's actions."

Evinne tucked her chin. "If I had stayed at home, I could have stopped him sooner. Too long have I ignored the truth. Now many lives may be lost, because I did not want to go home."

Anakin glanced at her curiously, her face shadowed in the torchlight. "You must have had a reason," he prompted, and Evinne sighed.

"I thought I did," she said heavily. "But my reasons will look pale in the light of death." She kicked a stone from their path. "Strangers did not deserve this."

"That doesn't make it your fault," Anakin reasoned. "Stevan is the guilty one."

Evinne sighed again, looking up at the stars beyond the roof of the hall. "You do not understand," she said, sounding more tired than Anakin had ever expected to hear her. "You were not raised here. But we are ... less individualistic ... than human Outsiders tend to be. We live and die together. We fight in packs. It is ... our way of being. So if a member of my clan, even my own brother, does harm, I have a duty to try and make it right. The weight of restitution will not rest on his shoulders alone; it a burden we all must bear." She shot him a look. "That's why Ryn was sent to Coruscant, you know. Atonement. She was the blood-price. Still is, I guess."

"I don't understand you people," Anakin declared, ignoring the fact that Evinne had said as much already. "You practically faint in horror at the idea of a perfectly normal and healthy surgery, and call it a mutilation, but you think it's just fine to send a twelve-year-old girl halfway across the galaxy to make up for someone else's mistakes. How is that right?"

"I don't know," Evinne answered. "Maybe it isn't right at all. But it is our way - the only way we know to heal the rift. Ryn gave her life willingly, and the Jedi accepted her in payment of the debt. What more would you have us do?"

"Not _more_," Anakin said. "Just ... _different_. Ryn is a person. She ought to live like one."

"Because the Jedi are so concerned with individual choice?"

"That's different!"

"Is it? How old were you when you gave your life to the Jedi?"

"Nine," Anakin said. "But I _wanted_ to do it."

_I just can't do it, Mom ..._

_... Now, be brave, and don't look back._

_ Don't look back ..._

"As far as I know, the only thing Areth'ryn has ever wanted is you." Anakin couldn't meet her sharp eyes. Evinne shook her head. "She _did_ choose, Skywalker. She chose to serve. As did you." She took a deep breath and nodded ahead at Ryn's slim straight figure, backlit as she approached the doors to the hall. "Pay attention tonight, young Jedi. This is history in the making."

That sounded ... ominous, exactly, but not comforting, either. "What do you mean?"

Makesh spoke unexpectedly from behind. "If Ryn carries her cause tonight, our grandchildren's grandchildren will sing songs of the Hunt for Kenobi," he said softly. "May the grace of the gods be upon her."

There was no more time to ask questions; they were entering the hall. Anakin lost sight of Ryn in the flurry of greetings and bows, but Evinne stuck as close to his side as his self-appointed bodyguard. They were thronged by girls Ryn's age or thereabouts, bearing cups of some strangely fragrant beverage Evinne identified as heather beer.

"Careful," she warned him. "It's stronger than you are like to think."

She turned to accept a cup of her own, and two girls immediately crowded between them, linking arms around Anakin's waist.

"Mmm," they said in unison, and giggled. "You smell good."

Was that a Lorethan thing? How many times had Ryn said the same?

"Thanks," Anakin managed, trying to keep track of their searching hands without putting his own anywhere he'd have trouble explaining later.

"I'm Khavan," the taller girl informed him. She leaned into his shoulder, blinking open with wide green eyes that reminded him sharply of Ryn, though it was the only feature they had in common.

"And I am Mabu," her companion added.

Khavan tugged the collar of his tunic open and pressed her mouth to the skin there. "We would make you welcome on this cold night."

_Cold night ..._ Alarms were ringing in Anakin's head. "It's, uh, not _that_ cold ..."

Mabu flattened her hand against his stomach and pressed lower, teasing the waistband of his Jedi leggings. "It is cold enough," she whispered, and leaned forward to tongue the hollow behind his ear.

"Aaaaannnnhhhhfff ..." Anakin could feel his control slipping, blood shifting its flow, thickening ...

_Come on, not here ..._

Evinne reached between them and pried Mabu loose, as Khavan stepped back in surprise.

"Your welcome smacks of desperation," Ryn's sometime ally instructed them tartly. "Be not so hasty in desire. Surely you two are too young to have been often refused, hm?"

They blushed fiercely. "We are cousins," Khavan said in Basic, her voice thick with anger. "And cousins also to nearly every man in the village, save a few veterans of old wars. It seems likely that we will die virgins if we do not take what chances we can find." She glanced sidelong at Anakin. "Your pardon, Stranger. I meant no offense. Truly you swell my loins with desire."

Anakin made an inarticulate noise, not even sure what he was trying to say.

Evinne said, "I see your problem, young woman. But molesting every man who passes through is not the answer." She gentled her tone and added, "Speak to our leader, Areth'ryn. Maybe you can come with us when we leave this place."

"Leave?" Mabu looked uncertain. "Those who leave do not come back. They die alone, far away."

"You know this?" Evinne cocked a skeptical eyebrow at her. "Who tells you, if they do not return?"

Khavan scowled. "If they lived, they would return to us."

"Now you're just arguing in tautologies," Evinne said. She caught the looks on their faces and waved the thought away. "Never mind that. My point is that we have a strong leader. She can take you out of here - if you are willing to come."

They exchanged a look. "What would we have to do?" Mabu asked.

Evinne grinned in satisfaction. "Stop touching this one, and make ready for battle. Our quest is not to be undertaken lightly" She made a shooing motion at them. "Now go! Seek out the dark-haired one later, if you have the courage."

They departed reluctantly.

Anakin raised an eyebrow at Evinne. "And what would we want with them?"

"We need all the help we can get," she answered grimly. "Come on."

Anakin set his teeth together and let Evinne haul him forward into the fray. _I've got a bad feeling about this._

* * *

He kept one eye on Ryn throughout dinner, even though they weren't seated together. Hedren put Ryn at her right hand, in the place of honor, and set the other three just above the midpoint of the table, on the opposite side.

"It's a strategic move," Evinne explained in an undertone. "She is giving Ryn the treatment due to the leader of a war-band, but without according any of us the honor due our rank. Ryn and I are higher-born than Hedfren - and you're a Jedi, which should command respect - but within her own hall Hedfren makes the rules. She tries to signal strength, but she tries too hard and reveals her weakness."

The man on Evinne's right leaned closer. "I hear you, Aesin'Evinne Ardel. But be wary. Speak no ill of our lady. She has many ears."

He subsided and leaned away again, ignoring them, but his words left a sour taste in Anakin's mouth.

Makesh proved very popular. Before the meal was halfway done he took his plate and joined a crowd of warriors, squatting around the hearth. They were a mixed group, mostly women shy of their middle years, but with a few members of both sexes nearer to Anakin's age; and they greeted Makesh with no little enthusiasm.

"Lonely for company," Evinne murmured. "This lot sees few visitors. And I'll warrant you every boy at that heart is sleeping with at least two of the women."

Anakin stared, fascinated in spite of himself. "How can you tell?"

"Common sense," Evinne said. "But also the way they move together. See the redhead, with the serpent tattoo climbing his right arm?" Anakin nodded. "Watching him. He's going to take a bite from that woman's plate, the one with the scar over her eye. There! And now he'll lean into the blond girl. Looks, he's practically nuzzling her now."

"Won't the first woman be furious?" Anakin inquired, still watching.

"We don't know which woman he slept with first," Evinne pointed our. "And anyway she can't afford to get angry. If she turns him away, there aren't another three women in this hall who wouldn't lay him tonight. And that's counting me and Orun." She shook her head. "This is what the wars have done to us. In the old days, a woman walked free and took her pick of men, and they were glad to be chosen. Now we fall upon each other like dogs fighting for scraps."

The emptiness in her voice tore at him. Anakin shifted in his seat. "Ryn says that your women now seek out same-sex relationships."

"Any port in a storm," Evinne answered wearily. "Most beings are more flexible in their preferences than they give themselves credit for. And there are ways to take care of yourself in a pinch But still, a majority of women would rather have a male partner. It makes good biological sense, if you think about it."

That sounded cold, but Anakin got the feeling maybe Evinne knew that alaready. "I don't ... er ... have you ever ..."

"Gone to bed with a woman?" Evinne finished for him, savoring a swig of her drink. "Sometimes." She glanced up, raked her eyes over him once, lingeringly. "I definitely like men."

Anakin didn't quite know what to say to that. He glanced back at the hearth. "Like Makesh?"

Evinne's jaw tightened. "I think that's over."

"Because he didn't like what you were doing with Engine?"

"Because he wants me to apologize," Evinne spat. "I never did more than handle Engine's equipment - and it was nice, too, but that's not all I look for in a man - but even if I had, Makesh had no right to complain of it. He never asked for exclusivity, never gave the slightest hint that he wanted more from me than a few pleasant hours. I can't read his mind, and I shouldn't have to try."

"Maybe he thought sleeping together made it obvious," Anakin suggested.

"I don't see why it would," Evinne said. "I don't ask what he's doing when he's not with me. It's none of my business."

Anakin thought of Obi-Wan, trying to explain how he had missed the fact that his Padawan was teaching a workshop because he was reluctant to intrude on Anakin's privacy by inquiring about his free time. "Maybe he wants you to," he mused.

"What?"

"Maybe Makesh wants you to ask what he's doing. Maybe he wants to know you care."

"I _don't_ care," Evinne knocked back the rest of her heather beer. "Not any more."

"You were trying to make him jealous, back there in the bath-house." Anakin said it with conviction.

"I -" Evinne set her cup down and turned to stare at him. "I don't know what you're talking about."

"That's why you made such a big deal of wanting to see my ... wanting to see me naked," Anakin insisted, fighting down a blush. _Luminous beings, luminous beings._ "I knew you weren't that interested in me."

"That is the most ridiculous ... Listen, Skywalker, that's just not true. I _do_ find you attractive." She leaned closer, lips parting in evident appreciation, and Anakin leaned away, putting his hand flat on the table between them.

"Stop it. It doesn't matter what you think of me. You'd never do that to Ryn," he said, and Evinne froze.

"What?"

"You think Ryn cares," Anakin said. "You'd never hurt her like that."

Evinne laughed mirthlessly. "I think you overestimate my scruples."

"No. You have ethics. They aren't mine, but you do keep them." He gestured at the hearth. "I sense your contempt for them. You think it's dishonorable to take another woman's man. You wouldn't do that. Even if you really liked me, which you ... don't, right?"

Evinne stared at him for a second in bleary-eyed surprise; then, abruptly, she barked a laugh. "Oh, I like you, right enough. I'm not quite the fool Areth'ryn is, however. I believe that girl would sell her soul for your love."

Anakin shuddered. "Don't say that."

"And why not?" Evinne queried. "Does it strike too sharp?"

Anakin grimaced. "I like her soul where it is, thank you." He glanced down at his plate, full of alien foods. "Anyway, things will be different now."

Evinne snorted. "You keep telling yourself that, darling. If you think getting your _annam_ sorted is going to cool her desire, you haven't been paying attention, these last few months."

Anakin narrowed his eyes at her. "I don't think you get to talk about Ryn's feelings," he warned her. "I still haven't forgotten what you did on Fjornel." Just in case she missed the point, he added: "To either of us."

Evinne turned a little green, or maybe that was just the lighting in the hall. "I'm glad you've recovered."

"Recovered?" Anakin said. "I still get sick to my stomach every time I think about it." He pointed his fork at her. "And the things you said to Ryn were ... I can't believe she's still talking to you."

Evinne ducked her head, and Anakin could have sworn he saw the faint edge of a blush rise across her cheekbones. "You're right." There was a catch in her voice - of remorse or humiliation, Anakin couldn't be sure. "I behaved ... inappropriately ... and I apologize."

"Don't tell me, tell Ryn," Anakin said, glancing up the table at his sometime best friend. Even sitting up straight, speaking to Hedfren like the aristocrat - _athelan_, Anakin reminded himself - she was, she looked very small and alone in that big company. _Hey,_ he thought at her, not sure whether she could sense him or not. _I'm with you. Hang in there._

Ryn jerked, startled; her gaze swept down the table, brows knitting in confusion, and met Anakin's encouraging smile. _Come on. You've got this._ The frown smoothed out, replaced by a small, uncertain smile of thanks.

It wasn't much, but it was real, and Anakin felt his heart squeeze sharply as she looked away, suddenly shy.

Evinne followed his line of sight. "Yeah, you're not interested at all."

Anakin opened his mouth to tell her what she could do with her observations, but at that moment Hedfren rose and held up her hands for silence.

"As you know," she began, "there are strangers in our hall tonight. Travelers who seek our hospitality and our help." Evinne kept up a running translation under her breath; Anakin leaned closer and did his best to follow. "Their leader wishes to speak with you. Therefore I make known to you Areth'ryn Orun, an _athelan_ of the Northern Isles. Hear her words, for it is right that you should do so."

Ryn pushed away from the table and stood looking over the crowd. Her eyes were very bright in the torchlight.

"Thank you for your welcome," she said, speaking just loudly enough to be heard throughout the hall. "Truly your hospitality sets an example for all your neighbors.

"In return for it I can offer you only this: the chance to join our hero's quest. A Jedi Knight has been wrongfully captured and held prisoner by the galactic criminal Granta Omega, working with the aid and collusion of our own Stevan Ardel." Evinne hissed at that bit; apparently she did not appreciate Ryn's interpretation of events. "I am sworn to serve the Jedi as their hostage, so I have come to help Padawan Anakin Skywalker in the search for his master." Evinne shoved him to his feet; Anakin bowed and sat back down to a thunder of wild cheering. "Stevan's sister Aesin'Evinne rides with us to restore the honor of her house." Evinne repeated Anakin's bow and received another roar of approval. "With us also goes a man near to my brother's heart, the warrior Makesh." Makesh saluted the hall with his drinking cup and met good-natured laughter; those near him reached out to clap him on the back. "We journey North to muster our forces at a weaponstake on my home ground, in the heart of Orun territory. Thence we shall set forth to hunt down the criminal Granta Omega, find and free Jedi Obi-Wan Kenobi, and destroy the evil that has come hither to threaten our sovereignty. It is an errand that may change the course of galactic history." She paused to let her words sink in, or maybe just to catch her breath; Anakin saw her throat working as she swallowed, hard. "Who will join us?"

Silence fell in the hall. Ryn stood straight, searching the faces gathered there. The quiet stretched and grew heavier, until its weight pressed on Anakin's chest and he could barely breathe. And still Ryn waited without moving.

At last a man stood up, from near the bottom of the table. "I am Lihamh," he said. "I will go with you, if my lady gives me leave."

Hedfren almost hid her flinch. "You are free to go as you will, Lihamh," she said unsteadily.

Anakin leaned forward to whisper in Evinne's ear: "I thought she said -"

"Sh! Be quiet!"

A second warrior rose and bowed, maybe twice Lihamh's age and four times Ryn's. "I am Deokh," he said. "I also will go."

Ryn bowed, as she had done for Lihamh, but this time Anakin heard her answer: "Thank you, Deokh."

A tall woman with red-gold hair stood too, and lifted her cup in salute. "My name is Merach," she said. "I will join this hunt."

"May the Force give you good hunting, Merach."

No more warriors stood forward. Ryn waited a moment longer, and then bowed one last time. "On behalf of my companions, I thank you," she said. "We leave at first light. If any one of you feels the urge to join our hero's quest between now and then, I beg you will come and find me. Peace be upon you all." She lifted her hands over them in a gesture Anakin recognized as blessing and withdrew to the hearth, carrying her drink; the crowd there parted for her and Anakin saw her lift her cup to Makesh before she found a spot against the wall to rest.

* * *

Ryn leaned her left shoulder against the rounded column of the fireplace enclosure and surveyed the hall, trying not to think too hard about all the things she couldn't fix. Trying to anticipate the things that hadn't gone wrong yet, like her brother taught her. Trying, most of all, to look like a leader, playing her part to the hilt.

_There is no try,_ Yoda's voice whispered in her head, and Ryn shook it off and downed a swallow of her drink.

_Screw you, Yoda. I'm doing the best I can._

Makesh sidled up behind her right shoulder. "See anything you like?" he murmured, his breath stirring her hair.

Ryn swirled the heather beer in her cup, a vile concoction but potent. "You mean like an army of warriors, ready to do my bidding?" She shrugged and drank again, trying not to grimace at the taste. "I have very low expectations."

Makesh chuckled. "So," he agreed quietly. "That's for the mission. And for yourself? Is there a man who catches your eye?"

_Makesh, you're drunk._

But she couldn't say that to this intensely private man who'd known her since she was a child, so she kept her gaze pointedly fixed on the far wall - ignoring the instinct that told her Anakin was ... right ... over ... _there_ - and said, tartly: "I don't have time for lovemaking." She waved her cup at the hall in general. "You go ahead."

Makesh rested his palm against the hearth beside her head and leaned in. "Perhaps I should not indulge when my leader refrains."

Ryn snorted and took another swig of the drink - an acquired taste that she was apparently never going to acquire - and felt it run cool down her throat, leaving a tang in its wake. "I don't care what you do with your spare time," she told him. "If you really want to make me happy, try and mend things with Evinne. She is as surly as a sore-tailed cat."

Makesh stiffened, leaning away again. "There is nothing to mend."

Ryn shrugged. "Have it your way."

Her companion narrowed his eyes, regarding her closely. "What? Has she - has she said something to you?"

Ryn watched him over the rim of her cup. "What would she say?"

"Nothing." Makesh slapped his hand against the stone beside her ear, hard enough to make Ryn flinch. "Enjoy your evening." He pushed off and stalking into the shadows.

Ryn watched him go. "Idiot," she said reflectively, and drained her cup.

* * *

_Come and find me,_ Ryn had said. _I will be waiting._

Her instructions were harder than they had sounded at first. Anakin had not counted on how dark the hall would be once the fire was banked, nor how many bodies would by lying in the floor, swathed in blankets (though by the sounds, very few of them were sleeping). He finally found Ryn by her silhouette against the window - and then realized, stupidly, that she'd been standing there all along, where she knew her shape would be recognizable against the starlight to anyone who knew her even half as well as Anakin did.

"Sorry," he murmured as he made his way to her side. "I didn't see you at first."

"'S all right," Ryn muttered, though her tone was cool. "Come with me."

She led him cautiously through the hall, ignoring the soft sounds of intimacy at their feet, and stopped at the front doors, where she whispered some words to the guards. They let her go with a few chuckles. Anakin thought he could guess what she told them, and tried not to mind.

He followed her around the side of the hall and down the slope to the bath-house where they had begun the conversation earlier. She stoked the banked fire with meticulous care and then eased into a crouch before it, a shadowy figure at the edge of the light.

"Sit," she commanded him softly. "I will tell you a story."

* * *

"A long time ago, before Loron made his journey hither, when the hills had yet to earn their names -"

"Hills have names?"

Ryn stopped, exasperated. "Of course they do. How else would we know what to call them?"

Anakin blinked, trying to follow her logic.

"As I was saying," she went on, ignoring him, "it was a long time ago. The _ylfe_ lived all over Loreth then, and roamed free over the land. They climbed the high mountains; they peered into pools; they searched out the deep woods and learned their secrets. In those days there was no high king, but each tribe was answerable to its own leader.

"Now for the most part these disparate tribes lived in harmony, respecting both each other and the peace of the world they lived in. The land was wide and the seas were deep, and there was room enough and to spare. But though the ways of the _ylfe_ are strange to us now, yet sentient beings are everywhere much the same: if they have not a war to hand, they will make one whatever."

"Why are you talking funny?" Anakin asked. "You sound different."

Ryn scowled irritably. "Do you want the story?" She waited for his nod of acceptance. "Then hush.

"Anyway. The many causes of their wars are lost to the mists of time. But of one particular war, we have some memory, for it has left its marks upon us, even to this day. In this case the tribes did not go to war as they willed, one against another. Instead they aligned themselves into two loose confederations: the Dumhara of the North, whose founders were the Dalriath, the Cymbri, the Morgha, and the fathers of the fathers of the Ardels; and the Filreca, whose names are forgotten."

"Wait," Anakin said. "You said the Ardels. What about Orun?"

"The fathers and mothers of Clan Orun were yet living in the Northern Islands, and did not fight in the territorial wars," Ryn said. "They and their kind had troubles of their own. But the Filreca and the Dumhara made war upon each other, with raiding and pillaging, and the laid was laid waste."

"If we don't even know what they were fighting about -"

Ryn sighed. "I can't help that. Likely they didn't know themselves."

"Oh, because that makes so much sense."

"Beings are not always sensible. Anyway, they must have thought they had a reason."

"Are you sure?"

"They died for it. Anyway, whatever they were fighting about, that's what they were doing."

Anakin opened his mouth, caught Ryn's admonishing glare, and shut up.

"Regardless of their causes, one of the few things we do know about the Filreca is the way they treated their women. Some even say that the war started because a Filreca man married a Dumhara woman, and his kin thought he mistreated her. The truth of the matter has been forgotten, and it is of no matter here."

"I thought you said we didn't know the reason!"

Ryn gave him a patient look. "Anakin. To this day two tribes cannot agree on what to have for supper, and you want to suppose that a cohort of them gathered and made war to rescue one woman? That's romantic nonsense."

"It is no worse than the rest of this fairy-tale."

"This is not a fairy-tale."

"Isn't it?"

"Of course not," Ryn said. "It is a legend. Do you want to hear it or not?"

Anakin shifted. "Go on."

"Well, then. You will remember, perhaps, that I once told you it was the Lorethan custom to cloister young women for three years from the time of their first menses?"

Anakin grimaced. "Yes."

"Don't be squeamish. I go through it every month."

"Sorry," he said, not very sincerely.

Ryn rolled her eyes and went on. "Anyhow. The Filreca took it to another level altogether. Rather than cloistering girls away to let them thrash through the worse of their hormonal changes, they determined to take a more active approach, whatever. So they took to the practice of cutting girls when their time came."

"Cutting girls?" Anakin repeated, unable to repress a shudder. "How do you ..."

"They way they did it was this: they cut of all a woman's external genitals." Ryn cleared her throat. "You know what those are?"

Anakin remembered his brief study of Vokara Che's diagram. "The vaginal lips and the clitoris."

"Yes. And you know that women generally will not ... hm ... achieve satisfaction without stimulation there - especially of the clitoris?"

She made it sound so clinical. "Uh. Vokara Che didn't ... didn't really cover technique."

"All right, then. Can you take my word for it?"

"You're the expert here." Ryn shot him a sharp look; but he just grinned guiltily. "Well, it's true!" Sobering, he added, "So the _ylfe_ used to remove those parts."

"Well, not all of them. Just the tribes of the Filreca." She sat back a little, looking out into the darkness at something Anakin could not see - the past, maybe. "We might not even know of it today, except that the Filreca lost. Some of those tribes were utterly destroyed by that war, so obliterated that they don't even exist any more. Their few surviving members were absorbed into other tribes, and some fled into the hills, never to be heard from again. But a fragment of the treaty that ended it has been preserved, because with it the Dumhara established the rule of the first high king. And in that treaty, one of the stipulations made upon the Filreca is that they shall cut no person's genitals, whether infant or adult, female or male, under penalty of banishment for the one who does the cutting and the one who orders it done." Ryn glanced sidelong, toward the door, and lowered her voice even further. "There are rumors that it is coming back, in our own day. Whispers of mutilation. Girls fleeing into the night. Ardel was one of the Dumhara, as I said, and yet it is said that when Evinne refused the man her father had chosen for her and began to seek others instead, he threatened to have her cut. We do not speak of it, and so the truth is unknown. But what is certain is that she left her house without warning, to join the Voluntary Militia, and has not returned to it since. Bad blood lies behind her flight."

Anakin scowled at her. "I still don't see why you feel the way you do, you and Evinne. Male circumcision is completely different. It's _healthy_. It's cleaner and cuts the risk of infections. That's important for a Jedi in the field."

Ryn hugged her knees to her chest and considered. "I know you think they are different, and so do the Jedi," she conceded slowly. "I can even see how that might make sense - a man can still feel sexual pleasure without his foreskin, whereas a woman is unlikely to have an orgasm without her clitoris. But on Loreth any cutting of the genitals has been regarded as qualitatively the same, for time out of mind. It is like the bogey-man."

There wasn't much to say to that, offensive as it might be. Ryn wasn't taking sides on the issue, though he could feel the echoes of her discomfort with the whole idea, a skin-crawling fear that refused to be quieted. She couldn't help how she was raised; and anyway talking about it wasn't going to change anything. He studied her face in the firelight and said, "Why did you never say anything?"

"About the _ylfe_?"

"About my circumcision."

She grimaced. "You mean why didn't I react like Evinne?"

"Something like that."

"By the time I met you, I knew what the Jedi did and why. It still feels strange to me, unnerving, but it doesn't _shock_ me any more." She paused reflectively. "Actually, I'm a little surprised that Evinne has never seen another circumcised man before. Maybe she is less promiscuous in practice than her flirting might lead one to believe."

"Maybe," Anakin agreed, thinking of Makesh and the patent longing in Evinne's eyes.

Ryn nudged his knee with a toe. "Are you okay, after all tis?" she asked hesitantly. "I mean, I know you're not thrilled with Lorethan culture right now, but ..."

"I'm fine," Anakin said - and to his surprise, it was true. This fear was their problem, not his. And Ryn at least seemed to be trying. "But what happened to the _ylfe_?"

Ryn sighed; but his vague, still-fuzzy sense of her was more relieved than anything else. "That's another story," she told him wearily. "Tomorrow night?"

He'd managed to demonstrate Jedi control over his emotions and not judge a foreign culture out of hand; maybe he'd better not ruin it by getting impatient now. _Quit while you're ahead._ "Sure," he said, rocking to his feet and holding out a hand to Ryn. "Tomorrow."

Something flickered in Ryn's eyes and he hauled her to her feet, something familiar yet strange: an immediate, visceral longing. She hid it quickly and turned away, but Anakin was left wondering about those urges the Filreca had tried to control.

_What happens if they're let loose?_


	4. Chapter 4

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER FOUR**

The next morning Anakin saw his first sleipnir.

The beasts stood taller than a man, with backs about shoulder height or a little higher; they had as promised eight legs, terminating in what Anakin was sure were deadly hooves.

Ryn laughed at his discomfort. "You'll be fine," she assured him, sitting her own saddle as though born to it. "Lihamh has picked out a nice gentle beast for you, very suitable for a beginner."

Anakin glared at her over the back of the sleipnir he was struggling - unsuccessfully - to mount. "I am _not_ a beginner," he gritted.

Ryn lifted one eyebrow, unimpressed. "So you've done this before?" she inquired archly, moving with the sleipnir under her as the great animal danced skittishly about the stable.

"No Jedi is a beginner!"

"Fine," she retorted, clearly in no mood to humor him. "Then you won't be needing my help." She spun her mount with a light pressure of her knees - Anakin caught the easy motion of one slim thigh - and trotted on out into the courtyard.

Even the beast beneath her looked smug.

A low chuckle at his back made him turn. The woman who had volunteered to join them last night stepped forward and held out her right hand in token of friendship. "Merach."

Anakin eased away from the sleipnir he seemed likely never to ride and took the hand, cautiously. "Anakin Skywalker."

Merach jerked her chin in Ryn's direction. "Your girl's caught temper."

That wasn't an idiom Anakin was familiar with, but Merach's Basic was good and her meaning was clear enough. Anakin glanced after Ryn with a grimace. "I don't think she's angry, really," he answered ruefully, aware that Ryn would have probably helped him if he hadn't been in such a temper himself. "Just ... distant."

Merach whistled. "You've got a lot to learn about women, Kid. Want a hand?" She waved at the sleipnir, who was alternately shying away and trying to tread on Anakin's feet, apparently indifferent to which outcome was most successful.

Anakin sighed. He was going to owe Ryn an apology later. "Please."

Merach looped her own reins over a nearby railing and stepped past him to stroke his mount's high-arched neck.

"There, my beauty," she murmured. "Such a fine strong girl, you are. let the young Jedi ride, hm? Give him a seat, fair one. Sh ..." She went on in this vein for some time before finally extending a hand to Anakin. "Now. Do you need a boost into the saddle?"

Anakin's cheeks burned. "No. Thank you."

"Well, then." Merach stepped aside to give him access, and Anakin stuck one foot in the stirrup and let the Force carry him in to the saddle. It was harder to get his second foot placed, but at last he managed it, and Merach clapped a hand to his thigh in approval. "There now. We'll make a rider of you yet." She tossed him a broad wink as she turned away. "Maybe you could use some of the same skills on your girl out there." She laughed earthily as she leapt into her own saddle. "Soothes most tempers. Distance, too."

She was gone, like Ryn, into the courtyard before he could answer.

Lihamh and Deokh were both quiet men, a little after the manner of Makesh, though lacking his remarkable good looks they seemed less mysterious and more taciturn. Lihamh took the lead as they headed north, guiding them toward a trial that led up through the hills toward the seaport Ryn was so anxious to reach. Evinne and Makesh were both surlier than usual; the Force whispered of sore heads and roiling stomachs, and Mos Espa had taught him to recognize the symptoms of a truly beautiful hangover, so Anakin cut them a wide berth. Ryn was still ignoring him just subtly enough that he'd feel like a fool for complaining about it, so that left Merach for conversation.

She didn't seem much more verbally inclined than Lihamh and Deokh, but her presence in the Force was pleasantly warm and not as prickly as the others - as far as he could tell, anyway; everything still felt too fuzzy for his comfort - and Anakin was determined to practice his scanty Lorethan, so he pulled his sleipnir into step beside hers and asked, haltingly, "What do you do?"

She glanced over at him, startled. "Sorry?"

Anakin searched his memory for the right word. "Work?"

"You ask how I earn food?"

"Yes."

"I am _dhovharn_."

Anakin repeated the word carefully.

"A hunter," Merach explained in Basic.

"_Vo dhovha?_" Anakin tried again.

Merach frowned at him, and he realized that he'd gotten either the interrogative or the verb form wrong, or maybe both. She answered him anyway: "I hunt for food and pelts."

_Food and ..._ Anakin repressed a shiver at the idea of such a primitive lifestyle. _It's no worse than Tatooine,_ he reminded himself. "That must be ..." he searched for the word in Lorethan and finally came up with "... a test?"

"Test?"

"Hard to do?" he suggested.

"Ah. You mean a challenge."

"Yes," Anakin said. "Sorry. Challenge."

Merach shot him a look of bemused sympathy. "I speak Basic, you know."

"I know," Anakin said. "I'm trying to practice."

Merach laughed. "Good for you. But if you're wanting to impress the little dark-haired one, you won't need words."

"The little ... _Ryn_?"

"Our bright-eyed leader, yes." Merach seemed amused; maybe there was some joke to the description that Anakin didn't catch. "She's a witch to look at, that's for sure. I can see why you like her."

_A witch?_ Anakin glanced ahead at Ryn, inhumanly beautiful but not remotely witch-like, and shook his head. "I ... we ... we're not like that."

Merach regarded him skeptically.

"I don't like her like that!" Anakin snapped in Basic. _Patience, young Padawan,_ Obi-Wan's voice murmured, just out of reach, and he lowered his tone. "We're just friends."

Merach leaned back in her saddle. "Whose fault is that?"

Anakin groaned and gave up on conversation.

* * *

They halted for the night on the south side of a little ridge, just around sunset. Ryn set to work tending the sleipniri while the others made camp. Anakin figured it was as good a time as any to overcome his fear of the beasts, so he helped her unsaddle them, rub them down, and lead them to the stream that ran around the foot of their little hollow.

"So," Ryn said, when they were standing at the edge of the stream holding the guide ropes, "how was your first day on a sleipnir? Are you much sore?"

His thighs were on fire, and his ass cheeks didn't bear thinking about. "Not too bad," he said bravely.

Ryn nodded her acceptance. "I think I'm going to try and make a tincture tonight, from some of that sweetbreath on the slope there. It should ease the chafing, if that's troubling you."

Force, yes, the chafing. "I'm fine," Anakin said, and then wondered if he were cursed with an inexplicable urge to keep making things harder for himself.

"As you wish."

She was being painfully _polite_, talking to him the way she talked to Jocasta Nu in the library, every syllable correct and courteous and not a trace of warmth anywhere. Anakin thought he might cry.

_No. I won't. Jedi don't cry._ "Um. Are _you_ sore?"

Ryn snorted. "I hurt in places I didn't know I had."

"Oh. So it's not ... a Lorethan thing."

That earned him an unexpected laugh - Ryn's light, clear laugh that always rang a little surprised, as though joy were something new to her. "No. Sleipnir are native to this world, but riding them is a learned skill. A hard one, too."

_I should have known that,_ Anakin thought, but in the light of Ryn's smile he decided he didn't care.

"I heard you making friends with Merach."

Her tone was neutral, but Anakin felt himself tensing anyway. "I thought I should try and get to know some of the others."

"You should get to know all of them," Ryn said. "But Merach is a fine start. What did you think of her?"

"She is ... honest," Anakin said slowly, trying to decide whether the question were some sort of test. "Friendly in a sort of general way. Open, I guess."

"Good," Ryn said. "We think alike." She ran the guide ropes absently through her fingers. "She was a hunter in the dun. I'm thinking she might prove a good scout."

Was Ryn asking his opinion? "If you think so," Anakin agreed cautiously, wary of the pitfalls of Lorethan customs. It felt like walking through a minefield, except he'd probably have been better at that. "It makes sense."

"Good," Ryn said again. "Then we'll use her as a scout." Ryn fidgeted a little, shifting her weight. "Any impressions of the others yet?"

Anakin frowned. "I don't get much from them," he admitted. "They're very quiet, that's all I can say." He squinted at her profile in the failing light. "I'm getting something from _you_, though. Are you okay?"

"I'm fine." She didn't sound very convincing.

"You feel ..." _Frightened. Hurt. And ... betrayed?_ "... unhappy."

"Unhappy isn't the right word," Ryn said reluctantly. "Empty, maybe." She tilted her head back and looked at the sky, white stars twinkling against a background of deep velvety blue. "But I don't know what to tell you, Anakin. I don't know what it means, or if it means anything at all. So right now I'm just taking one day at a time. It's the best I can do." She glanced over at him with a half-smile, tired but genuine. "What about you? Are you ... okay?"

Anakin wasn't sure whether she meant their healing, the awkward conversation about circumcision, or the fact that he was more or less alone on a strange plant with no real idea of how to find Obi-Wan. "Yeah," he said slowly. "I'm okay. One day at a time."


	5. Chapter 5

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER FIVE**

They lit a fire and set a watch that night, moving stiffly because of the cold.

"Wolves?" Ryn asked Merach, but the older woman shook her head.

"Not as bad as many years. Some of the outlying homesteads have had trouble."

Ryn glanced toward the sleipniri tethered close to the camp for warmth and safety. "I wouldn't like to trust our luck, even so."

Merach shrugged. "Could be wise. Fire will be our best defense."

_I know that,_ Ryn started to say, but she bit her tongue instead. _Easy. Stop acting like you've got something to prove._ "So it is," she acknowledged with reasonable calm. "And we will keep a watch." She kicked a log further into the fire. "Not that any of us will get much sleep in this cold."

Merach shrugged. "At least the weather is fine."

The observation did not seem to require a response, so Ryn nodded at her and turned to study her little war-band.

There was Makesh, recovering from his hangover but terse as ever. He was a good man in a fight: steady, reliable. Deokh and Lihamh were still largely unknown quantities, which made her nervous. They rode well, addressed the two _athelan_ with respect, and kept mostly to themselves. So far they had avoided speaking to Anakin altogether; that might be a problem, or it might not. The Jedi made a lot of people uncomfortable. It didn't have to mean anything sinister. Anakin himself was quieter than usual: withdrawn. Regardless of the slowly-dissipating shields the Healers had laid on her, Ryn felt anxiety. He was worried for Obi-Wan, and missed his company in this strange place - and who could blame him? Ryn missed him, too. She didn't always agree with the older Jedi - all right, _often_ didn't agree with him - but she trusted his integrity. And he had a keen mind for intrigue, as well as a formidable command of the Force: the hunt for Omega would go slower without him. And last there was Evinne, who sat alone, wrapped in her cloak, and stared into the flames, which anyone could see was a fool thing to do. It dazzled the eyes, so that if you had to look into the shadows for any reason, you'd be as good as blind until they adjusted. But Evinne already knew all that, and she wasn't on watch yet, so Ryn let it go.

_Troop of thieves,_ she thought, remembering an old song, and shrugged. They were what they were.

[]

Ryn didn't get to tell Anakin the story of the _ylfe_ that night - too many other ears listened - but he didn't say anything about it, and Ryn hoped that maybe he understood. She tried to keep her eyes off him as they squatted in a circle around the campfire - staring was rude - but it was hard, because she had nearly forgotten how beautiful he was, and how he kept reminding her. Maybe it was the change of setting, or their newly complete separation, still tender under the muffling shields. But she saw his hands working the fire, and caught her breath; she glimpsed his smile in the firelight and got lost. And his voice ... his voice set up an answering thrum, deep in her core, that spread through all her limbs until her skin turned pink and tingled.

He was telling Merach the story of how he met Tru Veld, and Ryn had heard this one before, so finally she gave into the impulse to lean back and close her eyes, and just listened, because if this was all she would ever have of him, she wanted it to last a lifetime.

But she was tireder than she knew, and before she realized what was happening she was drifting away, lost in a place where dream blended with reality and Anakin was telling that story to their children ...

She woke to a touch on her cheek.

"Ryn?" Anakin leaned over her, his blue eyes warm, and stroked his rough thumb over the arch of her cheekbone. "Are you okay?"

_Breathe. Just breathe._ "I'm fine," Ryn answered shakily. _I want to go back._

"You were crying," Anakin told her gently.

_Oh._ Ryn closed her eyes again, unwilling to plunge them both back into the emotional turmoil they'd been struggling to cope with for the last two months. That wasn't fair to Anakin, who didn't share his friend's feelings; and it wasn't fair to the rest of their war-band, who needed them sharp and focused. _But damn it, it hurts._ It was all she could do not to turn her face just that little bit and press a kiss into Anakin's palm. It felt like _more_ than she could do.

Turning away from him was the hardest thing she'd ever done.

"I'm just tired."

[]

Dawn came cold and clear. Evinne, who'd had the last watch, kicked the others awake - none too gently- and stirred up the fire. Ryn rolled to her feet, trying to ignore the fact that Anakin was crawling out of _Evinne's_ blankets, and squinted north and east.

"How many hours' riding, you think?" she asked Deokh, who happened to be standing closest.

"To Enysvran?"

"Yes."

"Maybe out seven or eight. We can make it before nightfall."

Ryn nodded her thanks and returned to her study of the horizon. Reaching the port with daylight to spare would not be enough; they ha to find a ship willing to take them, which meant they had to either buy or barter passage, and still get sleipniri on the other side. She fingered the small purse Sarta had given her, slung on her utility belt. Ryn doubted whether it could be expected to buy one sleipnir, let alone mount and outfit the seven of them on top of the cost of passage.

_So we'll beg our way across,_ she told herself firmly. _Whatever it takes._

"You look worried," Anakin said quietly, coming to stand by her as he rolled the blankets.

But it wasn't _looking_ worried that had him frowning at her, Ryn knew. Anakin could feel her anxiety - maybe less now than before the Healers did their work, but they had been friends too long for him not to know her moods.

"We've come at a bad time of year," she murmured back. "Folk have little to spare, and we can't pay for any of it."

She didn't need to see his face to know what his expression would be. "I can promise Republic dectarii," he said hesitantly. "The Jedi will want Obi-Wan back. Especially if we can capture Omega."

Ryn waved this away, good-intentioned as it was. "No," she said quietly. "Republic credits are no good out here, any more than on Tatooine." She'd heard the story of Qui-Gon's first run-in with Watto too many times to count; it was a favorite of both Anakin and Obi-Wan. "Anyway, my people regard the Republic as something of a threat. The offer might hurt more than it helped."

"I understand," Anakin said. He didn't, not really, but he probably came closer than any other Jedi. He buckled the blanket down and shot her a quick glance. "So what do you want to do?"

Ryn snorted. "Since when does that matter? We'll do the best we can."

Anakin ducked his head a little and gave her his sly, unintentionally seductive grin. There was just so much _life_ behind his smile. "One day at a time?"

Ryn cleared her throat and tore her eyes away, trying to calm her beating heart. "Pretty much."

Anakin flashed her another smile that could have powered a starship and moved off, presumably to take care of mundane needs.

Speaking of ... "Evinne! I'm going downstream. Back in a few."

Evinne tossed her a canteen. "Bring back some water when you come."

That meant a trip _up_stream, not down, but Ryn took it anyway. "Be ready to ride in half an hour."

Evinne just waved.


	6. Chapter 6

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER SIX**

They reached the seaport two hours past noon, nearly as tired as their sleipniri.

"Now we just have to barter passage," Evinne remarked, drawing rein as they topped a low hill just south-west of the town. "Anybody got a bright idea?"

"We'll think of something," Ryn said, with more confidence than she felt. "Knowing what the shipmaster wants is half the battle."

Evinne stared at her. "We don't know what anybody down there wants."

"Which is why we have to go find out," Ryn answered. "First things first."

The others didn't seem all that convinced by her line of reasoning. Ryn figured that was fair, since she felt pretty shaky about it herself. _It's not getting any better while we waste daylight up here._ She kneed her mount into weary action and started the descent into town.

Like every port town she'd ever been in, Enysvran was a rough and grungy place, full of people who had gotten stuck here and others who preyed upon them. IT was dank and dirty and dangerous, and that was on the open streets in the broad daylight.

_I don't want to see this place after nightfall._

Lihamh had been here before, a few years ago, so he led the way down to the docks. The streets were mostly mud, alternately slick and sticky, so they had to dismount and guide the sleipniri, who turned skittish in the muck.

The harbor itself was more empty than not, no great surprise at this time of year. Sane people were home, waiting out the winter at their hearths.

_And I'm out here slogging so they can,_ Ryn reminded herself, because that hadn't gotten any less true since the first time Kit had told her the same thing eight years ago.

The bad news, of course, was that under such circumstances their chances of finding a reasonable captain willing to take them across did not look good.

_We might have to forego the _reasonable_ part._

One schooner rode in the harbor, sleekly built and in what looked to be decent shape. Ryn sucked her teeth, surveying the rest of their options, and nodded. "That's our ship, if we can get her."

Deokh followed her gaze. "How do you figure our chances?"

_Not great,_ Ryn thought, but she shrugged. "We won't know until we try."

They trailed down the dock to get close and whooped to get the attention of any crew belowdecks, but no one answered, and they were left standing bemused, hands on hips in frustration as they searched each other's faces for an answer.

"I can't fathom it," Ryn said, wince it was her job now to begin most conversations. "Maybe the ship is abandoned."

"Lucky break for us if it is," said Deokh.

That wasn't necessarily true - if the ship _were_ abandoned, the local lord was sure to lose no time in claiming it - but Evinne intervened on this reflection with a more practical one. "Who's going to sail it?" she demanded. "We're not sailors. I've got a hundred times more hours in space than sea. Half a sweetcake says you've got neither."

Deokh glared at her, probably feeling that his manhood had been impugned somehow - he was turning out to be touchy about that - but Ryn held up her hand for silence.

"Easy," she said firmly. "Let's not rush to conclusions. There must be someone in this town who can give us answers."

"Yeah, like maybe the owner," Anakin suggested. "There's somebody on that boat."

Ryn blinked at him. "Are you sure?"

"Positive. I can feel him. Or her."

Evinne eyed him with interest. "Can you tell sex through the Force?"

"Right now I can't even tell species," Anakin answered. "But there's something large and alive over here."

Ryn sized up the distance from the dock to the ship's railing. _That's a long jump._ She could make it, maybe. On a good day. With the wind in the right direction. Or, knowing her luck, she might just go for a swim in the freezing sea. Anakin, on the other hand ...

She nudged him with an elbow. "Can you make that?"

"What are you - oh. Yeah, I think so."

"Be sure," Ryn warned him. "That water's cold."

"I can make it."

"Can you catch me if I don't?"

Anakin ran his eyes over her, and Ryn knew he was trying to figure out just how much of a Force lift that would take, and whether he could do it in his currently shielded condition. Finally he shrugged. "Size matters not," he concluded cheekily. "Give me the best start you can."

"You got it."

"Let me go first."

_How else are you going to catch me?_ Ryn thought, but she said, "Be my guest."

Anakin executed the leap as though he'd been doing it all his life, a perfectly aerodynamic somersault in mid-air that was breathtaking in its sheer understated grace, and landed in the center of the deck, probably just to prove he could.

"Show-off!" Ryn called to him, and Anakin grinned and waved, not bothering to deny it.

_Oh, that man._ That beautiful, impossible, fascinating man.

"Stay here," Ryn ordered the others, and backed up for a running go.

She wasn't as graceful as Anakin, but she made a respectable leap nonetheless. She could feel the surge of energy around her that had to be Anakin's use of the Force, and instead of fighting she opened herself to it as she launched over the waves ...

She hit the deck a little awkwardly and had to roll to her feet, but otherwise ... _Not bad._

Anakin grinned at her in greeting. "You would have made it anyway."

Ryn dusted herself off with a grimace. "If you say so. I'm just as glad you were there to catch me."

Anakin's grin faded as he turned serious. "I'll always be there to catch you," he told her soberly.

There were about a million ways that could go wrong, but Anakin meant every word, and Ryn wouldn't make light of his sincerity. She gripped his shoulder and said, "You can count on me, too."

They found the hatchway that led belowdecks and also a hinged door leading to a sort of cabin; this close, Ryn could feel the presence behind it.

They didn't need words for this. Together they flowed across the deck; as one they pressed themselves to the wall on either side of the door, and when Anakin spun to put his boot in the center of it, Ryn fell back to cover him. It was textbook-perfect teamwork, but in the end they didn't need it. The door yielded and swung back under Anakin's second sharp kick, and they were left staring into a dark and smelly pit of a cabin, mostly filled with a single unimpressive cot. The rest of the floor space was occupied by a filthy human being who might have been destined for the cot but now lay sprawled against the far wall, clutching an equally grimy - and now empty - bottle in one weathered hand.

"Saints help us," Ryn whispered.

Jedi didn't believe in the Saints and she doubted whether the inhabitants of Tatooine did either, but Anakin looked around the cabin and said, "Yeah." He sounded muffled, and when Ryn glanced back at him, he had one sleeve pressed against his mouth and nose - as a guard against the smell, probably, though it wasn't likely to do him much good.

Ryn nudged the sleeper with the toe of her boot and whistled softly. "That's a kind of drunk I've never been." She shook her head. "Come on. Help me get him outside."

"I think the smell is coming from him," Anakin protested, but Ryn shot him a look and he knelt and put one arm behind the drunk's shoulders while Ryn did the same from the other side. Together they wrestled him out into the fresher air on the open deck.

Anakin made a show of gagging at the stench. "What do you want with this heap of sour sweat?"

Ryn snorted at his imagery and began searching the deck for a suitable water vessel. "We need his ship," she reminded Anakin. There was a bucket lashed to the side that might once have held tar; it was empty now in any case. Ryn looped the rope around its handle and lowered it into the waves below, reflecting dismally that even if the harbor water was full of sewage, it had to be cleaner than whatever foul-smelling funk the man was wearing now. "Besides, we might be able to help him."

"He's a _drunk_," Anakin retorted, his tone sour with disgust. "He doesn't deserve our help."

That had to be his childhood talking. Probably growing up with a crowd of abusive drunk thugs would leave a bad taste in one's mouth, but there was nothing Ryn could do to change his past, so she just hauled up the water bucket and shrugged. "Mercy isn't earned, Anakin."

He didn't have an answer for that, but when she hefted the bucket and made her unsteady way across the deck, he stood back to let her dash it over their patient.

"Come on," Ryn muttered, dropping to one knee to slap the drunk lightly across the face. "Wake up, wake up!" She collared him and shook him, grunting with the effort, all to no avail.

"Get back," Anakin said behind her, and Ryn jerked in surprise to see that he'd brought another bucket of water. He met her eyes for one guilty half-second and blushed, looking away awkwardly.

Ryn suppressed a grin; Anakin was usually better than his words. But gushing would only embarrass him, so she murmured her thanks and got clear.

The second bucket of water only earned a groan, but the third induced vomiting; Ryn braved the vileness to crouch down and wrench the drunk over to his side before he could choke to death.

"Force," she panted, squatting on her heels. "Now _I_ need a bucket."

"You've looked better," Anakin agreed. "Smelled better, too."

Ryn rolled her eyes at him and tried to focus her sense of the spewing man before them. "I'm not getting much," she reported unhappily. "Between my brain fog and his alcoholic stupor, it's not exactly ideal communication."

"I don't think he's in good health," Anakin said. "He feels ... weak."

Ryn bit back a curse. "Now you tell me." But the man was _alive_, at least, and they'd come too far to give up now, so she knelt over him and shook him again. _ "Wake up!" _

He twisted in her grip, vomited violently into her face, and heaved himself backward. "Who are you?"

Ryn choked and spluttered, wiping at her face with her hands. Anakin said, in very careful Lorethan, "I am Anakin Skywalker. This is my friend, Areth'ryn Orun."

"War leader!" Ryn gasped, but Anakin ignored her - possibly because no one would believe it under the current circumstances anyway.

"Are you all right?" he asked instead, and the old drunk grunted.

"I'm here, ain't I? You're talking to me, ain't you? _Of course I'm not all right!_"

Ryn dredged her eyes clear of the muck and squinted at him. "What is the matter?"


	7. Chapter 7

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER SEVEN:**

The drunk ignored Ryn to stare blearily at Anakin. "What is your woman -"

"I am nobody's woman!" Ryn snapped, flinging off clods of residual vomit. Letting anyone call her Anakin's woman at this point was a kind of painful she couldn't even begin to contemplate. _You were never made for love,_ Stevan Ardel's voice whispered from the depths of her memory, and Ryn stepped on that old ache. "I am his war leader."

The drunk laughed hoarsely. "War leader, my ass. What are you, twelve?"

"Thirteen," Ryn said evenly. "But I'm very good at my job." _That remains to be seen._ "And you still haven't answered my question. What is the matter with you?" She looked pointedly at his filthy, rumpled clothes. "Besides insensate drunkenness, that is."

He glared at her. "Who wants to know?"

_You are in no position to be making demands, old man._ But unfortunately neither was Ryn, so she sighed and said, "As we have already told you, my name is Areth'ryn Orun. This is Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker."

The man squinted up at Anakin against the watery sunlight. "Jedi, eh? You don't look Lorethan."

"Neither do you," Ryn pointed out.

"No more I am!" he bellowed, spewing breath so vile Ryn nearly vomited herself. "But haven't I lived here these twenty years? Haven't I?"

"Are you _asking_ me?" Ryn queried uncertainly, because if his belligerent demand was more than rhetorical, this was going to be an unsatisfying conversation for both of them.

"Sure I have!" the man proclaimed, and this time Ryn rocked back on her heels in time to avoid the blast. "Doesn't everyone know it?"

_They do now,_ Ryn thought. Aloud, she said, "I don't understand. What has this got to do with your condition?"

"Everything, lass!" he roared. "Everything!" His voice abruptly subsided to a whimper. "The young man there understands. Ask him."

Ryn twisted to exchange looks with Anakin, who gave no sign of being any better informed on the topic than she was herself.

"This is getting us nowhere," he growled softly. "He can't help us."

Ryn didn't really have a lot of room to argue, but ... "We don't know that yet."

Anakin folded his arms and cast a significant glance at their patient.

Ryn lifted one hand as though he had spoken, silently begging him to wait, and turned back to the drunk, who was now struggling ineffectually to sit up. "Why should he know?" she asked him carefully. "What does he understand?"

Mad cackling laughter. _Not a good sign._ Ryn restrained herself from voicing the obvious and waited.

"He knows, he knows! The boy knows what a woman can do."

_Huh?_ Ryn looked helplessly from him to Anakin. But as she turned back again, Anakin unexpectedly spoke:

"Betrayal," he said with a quiet certainty that sat oddly on his brash young shoulders. "Is that it? You were betrayed by a woman you loved?"

_What? How did you get that?_

But the grizzled old drunk tapped his nose and winked broadly at her. "Ah, what did I tell you? The boy knows."

Ryn craned her neck to meet Anakin's eyes. "How in the galaxy -"

"Men drink when they lose," Anakin said grimly. "Women, money, jobs ... it doesn't matter." He shrugged, but there was a muscle twitching in his jaw to belie the nonchalance.

_Tatooine again._ Ryn shook her head and let it go.

"So you lost a woman," she summarized, glancing around the ship. "Is this your master plan for getting even? Lying in a drunken stupor in a ship that reeks of stale vomit?"

He leered up at her. "You have a better idea?"

Ryn scanned the sky for daylight with the best show of skeptical consideration she could muster. "Tell you what," she suggested, drawing her words out with deliberate care. "Why don't we go somewhere -" _less smelly_ " - and talk about it?"

It was the best move she had, and in the end it worked, probably because Ryn knew he didn't have any better options, and he knew that she knew. He took her hand and let her haul him to his unsteady feet, and Anakin rolled his eyes and said, "I guess this means I get to carry both of you."

Ryn took it for what it was - a sincere, if grudging, offer of help - and shot him a quick, teasing grin that was also thanks. "Got it in one."

[]

Evinne reached out to steady Anakin as he dropped to the dock. He caught her deeply skeptical look, but there was no time to explain, even if he'd known where to start, so he just shrugged helplessly, out of words, and saw Evinne close her eyes and shake her head before he turned back to levitate both Ryn and the drunken sailor - there was a cliché so old it probably dated back before space travel - over to the dock.

Ryn came first, and this time she didn't jump, but let him carry her completely, to show their newfound comrade - his name, they'd finally discovered, was Hallan - that it was safe.

She held very still as he lifted her over, the anxiety she usually felt regarding telekinesis carefully in check. He knew she wasn't really afraid of his dropping her - Ryn had the same sense of unease when Anakin used the Force to lift a piece of fruit - so he tried not to take it personally.

She gave him a little smile when she touched down, almost hiding his relief. "Thanks for the ride."

He grinned at her. "Think I should carry our friend Hallan upside down?"

"_No_, I most emphatically do _not_," Ryn retorted with a hint of asperity.

"Dunk him once to wash off the smell?"

"No!"

Anakin felt his grin widen. "You're such an easy mark."

Ryn squeezed his shoulder in acknowledgement, but said nothing. This close, Anakin could feel the fatigue saturating her presence.

"One drunken pirate, coming right up."

The corner of Ryn's mouth twitched. "We don't know that he's a pirate."

"Are you defending his character?"

"Anakin ..."

"You sound like Obi-Wan."

Ryn sighed. "Well, sometimes Obi-Wan is right."


	8. Chapter 8

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER EIGHT**

"Obi-wan, you could help yourself so easily," Omega's oily voice persisted in his ear. "I know that you long for full access to the Force. Let me give it to you. We could work together."

"Work together to do what?" Obi-Wan inquired, watching Omega pace about his small cell.

"Ah, that is the question, isn't it?" Omega beamed at him. _That's why I asked. _ "Imagine, Master Kenobi - think of all that we could achieve together!"

"But we would have to start somewhere," Obi-Wan reminded him. "Surely you have something in mind?"

Omega paused in his pacing to regard Obi-Wan with an evaluating stare, behind which the dull glow of madness lurked. "Loreth," he whispered finally, fanatically. "A place of untold power and possibilities. An entire planet full of Force-sensitive beings. Beings of unlimited potential, who need only someone to teach them their own power. You could be that someone, Obi-Wan. You could train a new kind of Jedi, a Jedi rooted in conscience rather than politics!"

"With you?" Obi-Wan asked, lifting one eyebrow. "I rather think not."

"Don't be so certain," Omega warned him. "There is much to be achieved here. And untrained, are Force-sensitives not at risk of succumbing to the Dark Side."

_Yes, yes they are,_ Obi-Wan thought. _Oh Ryn. What have you been hiding?_

"Clearly they are managing without my help, as they have done for centuries," he observed coolly. "If Force-sensitivity on their planet is as widespread as you say."

Omea's face glowed from within with the fervor of a fanatic. "Not widespread, Obi-Wan. Pervasive! Even the plantlife has an unusually high midichlorian count!" He lowered his voice in a mockery of persuasion. "They could become a very real threat. And your Padawan is among them. Consider that."

The criminal swept out without waiting for an answer.

_Be careful, Anakin._

[]

They hauled Hallan down the wharf and into the first drinking-hole they fond, what Ryn called a "public house." She manhandled their ill-smelling companion into a corner seat, where she and Merach slid in other either side, casually blocking his exit.

"So," the darkhaired Lorethan began, "this is our party: Merach, Evinne, Deokh, Lihamh over there getting the drinks, Makesh, and Anakin you've already met."

The drunk mumbled something inarticulate, which Ryn ignored. "And this is Hallan."

Lihamh pulled up a free chair. "Drinks in two shakes of a nerf's tail."

"Huh?" said Anakin.

"It's just an expression," Evinne said.

"Right," said Ryn. "Anyway, Hallan, we were inspecting your ship for salvage when we realized that it was not abandoned as we had thought. Imagine our surprise."

"Imagine," said Hallan.

"It was our intention to simply take the ship, plug up its holes, and set sail for Ennysrhun on our own." _It was?_ Anakin thought. But he'd seen Obi-Wan bluff his way through enough negotiations to keep his mouth shut now. "Of course, now that we know you're alive, we would rather work with you."

Hallan blinked at her. "You'd steal a dead man's ship?"

"I'll steal a drunken man's ship if I have to," Ryn said. "I'd rather not." She grinned wickedly, and even Makesh suddenly looked a little more interested. "It's in everyone's best interests to negotiate."

"Negotiate?" said Hallan. "This is extortion."

"If you like," Ryn agreed serenly. "The point is: I have your ship. I'm willing to give it back to you, in exchange for passage - if it's seaworthy?"

"Why should I tell you?" Hallan grumbled, and Ryn leaned back and smiled, doing a good impression of I-know-something-you-don't-know.

"We could be willing to do more than give your ship back," Evinne ventured, "if you tell us what you want."

"Want?" Hallan demanded. "I want _off_ this benighted planet, that's what I want!"

Ryn and Evinne exchanged looks and then nodded slowly, in unison. "All right," Evinne said. "We can make that happen. It might take a few weeks, but we can get you off-world, if you can get us to Ennysrhun."

Hallan snorted. "Who do you think you are? Only the clan chieftains can approve travel off-world.

Ryn drew her belt knife and eased the tip of it under his chin, forcing him to look at her. "I am Areth'ryn Orun," she reminded him, very quietly. "I speak for my clan."

Hallan swallowed. "Kitraal Orun -"

"Is my brother." Ryn glanced back at Evinne. "We can do as she says. The question is: can you?"

Hallan hesitated. "How do I know I can trust you?"

"You don't."

"We could have killed you and taken your ship," Anakin pointed out.

"You're taking it now!"

"All we want is passage to Ennysrhun," Ryn said firmly.

Hallan sized her up. "On the run, are you?"

She waved him to silence as the barmaid came with their drinks - some kind of foul-smelling herbal concoction for Hallan, ale for the others. "We are going home to raise a war-band." She sipped her ale. "It need not concern you."

Hallan sniffed his tea and made a face. "Damn Lorethans," he muttered sourly. "Always trying to play hero."

"What do you care?" Evinne asked. "You're leaving."

Hallan eyed her warily. "I'm no fighter," he warned them. "Even if you tried to drag me off on some damn fool idealistic crusade, it wouldn't do you any good."

"We don't want your anyway," Ryn told him. "Just your ship."

Hallan glared at her, but Ryn just grinned back, guilelessly charming.

"Drink your tea," Evinne said, and propped her boot heels on the edge of the table. "We have work to do."


	9. Chapter 9

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

Warnings: This chapter contains more sexual content than is usual for the FFV. It is not explicit, but the participants are underaged by our standards. Consider yourself forewarned.

**CHAPTER NINE**

The sea journey took three days and all hands. Without a regular crew, Hallan put the seven of them to work at whatever tasks they could manage, and several they couldn't. Anakin found himself both fascinated and sickened by the fact that they were not only surrounded by water, they were actually _traveling_ on it. And because this was Loreth, artificial locomotion was forbidden, so they were entirely dependent on the action of the wind and the waves to go anywhere at all.

"Think us faster," Ryn urged him on the second day, coming to find him as he stood in the bows and gazed in wonder at the lashing gray expanse of waves before and around them.

Anakin turned to look at her, a frown forming. "What?"

"Think us faster," Ryn repeated. "Evinne could use the help."

Anakin looked around until he spotted Evinne hanging in the rigging and staring out to sea. But as far as he could tell, she wasn't _doing_ anything, and she certainly didn't seem to be in need of help. He turned back to Ryn, confused. "Huh?"

Ryn's eyes searched his for a second. "You have no idea what I'm talking about," she said at last. She sounded both surprised and disappointed, or maybe resigned - it was hard to tell.

"I'm ... sorry?" Anakin tried, not sure how he'd failed her this time.

"No, that's fine." Ryn surveyed the waves, gnawing her chapped lip. "It's not your fault."

But she felt tense and unhappy, and Anakin couldn't help wanting to make it better. He reached out and put one hand on her shoulder, feeling the life and strength running beneath her skin, his own answering jolt of awareness. Not for the first time, he wondered what Ryn's midichlorian count might be. There weren't many beings who could startle him with their sheer vitality.

"Tell me," he urged her. "Maybe I can help."

Ryn cut her eyes to his hand. "Don't touch me," she said, very quietly.

Anakin jerked back as if stung. He _felt_ stung, too, as sharply as if she'd slapped him across the face. "I ... I ..."

"It's nothing personal," Ryn said, still in that same empty tone. "I'm just ... easily aroused ... these days." She wrapped her arms around her ribs and stared out to sea. "It should get better in a few days."

The expression on her profile - or lack thereof - could have rivaled a Jedi Master's for calm, and yet Anakin was abruptly, intensely furious. How dare she drop this on him now, after everything they'd been through lately? When Obi-Wan was _missing_, for kriff's sake? He'd never asked her to -

"I never asked for it, either," Ryn answered in an even lower voice, and Anakin realized he'd been broadcasting his thoughts for anyone who cared to listen. A quick glance over his shoulder confirmed that several sets of eyes were watching them furtively. The tightness in Ryn's jaw said she hadn't missed it, either, even if she declined to comment.

"Sorry," Anakin muttered, fumbling for his shields. "Um. Why a few days?"

Ryn pursed her lips in what looked like distaste. "Evinne assures me that these ... heightened ... feelings are merely a part of my natural cycle."

Anakin was pretty sure he didn't want to be talking about this. "Is ... uh ... is that a Lorethan thing?"

Ryn's breath threaded with laughter. "All humanoid females have a menstrual cycle, Anakin."

"Oh." He felt his cheeks heating. "I thought that made women grouchy, not ..." He couldn't make himself say it.

Ryn ducked her head, trying unsuccessfully to hide her laughter. "Give me a week or so."

"I don't ... what?"

Ryn blushed furiously, looking away from him as her pale skin washed a brilliant fuchsia. "I'm not ... _bleeding_ ... I'm ... fertile."

Anakin scowled, feeling that Vokara Che had shortchanged his education in some significant ways. _But humanoid species are mammalian,_ he reminded himself. _And when a female is fertile ..._ "You're in heat!"

Ryn's eyes jerked to his face and then away as a stunned silence settled over the deck. She shifted away from him, hugging herself tighter. "I didn't deserve that."

"Deserve what?" Anakin asked, still waiting for his brain to catch up with his mouth.

Ryn's own mouth twisted in discomfort; he could see it in her profile even though she refused to look at him. "Your crude insult." She radiated anger so powerfully it was like heat from an open furnace. "You may not be at ease with the rhythms of my reproductive cycle, but that does not give you the right to mock them."

"But I didn't!" Anakin protested, stung all over again. "I'm just trying to understand -"

"Oh, really," Ryn said, her tone dripping with acid. "How would you feel if I said you were in rut every time you noticed a pretty girl?"

Anakin felt out of his depth, taken aback by both her anger and her language. "Humans don't rut," he stammered uncertainly.

"They don't go into heat, either!"

"Um," said Anakin. He could feel the eyes of the deck crew on them, staring. "But you're not ... uh ..."

"I assure you, sentient beings are never 'in heat,'" Ryn informed him sharply. "The ability to control one's actions in the face of such physical urges is what distinguishes us from food animals."

"You can't be -" Anakin broke off. She _was_ serious. Deadly serious, and deeply offended. "Uh." He licked his lips, trying to ignore the fact that six other people were watching his crash and burn with undisguised fascination. "Look, Ryn, I didn't ... I didn't mean ... uh ... anything."

The look Ryn shot him was so scathing Anakin was tempted to check and see if he was missing any skin. "Then why speak?"

"Uh ..."

"Because all this time I thought the purpose of language was to communicate!" She finally turned to face him, her eyes sparking with green fire. "I guess you'll have to _educate the fucking primitive_!"

"Uh," Anakin said again, eying her warily. He couldn't remember ever seeing Ryn lose her temper before. For as long as he had known her, she had been almost preternaturally restrained, practicing a ruthless self-control that challenged even Jedi discipline.

He reached out to snag her arm. "Ryn, I -"

"_Get your hands off me!_" Ryn shoved him backward so hard he almost lost his footing and went down.

Anakin caught himself on the railing and made another grab for her, perhaps unwisely. "Just _listen_ to me ..."

_Crack_.

He shook his head, ears ringing, and stared at her in disbelief. Ryn had just _hit_ him. On purpose.

"Stang it, Ryn, just -" This time he caught her wrist, suspending her next strike. So he didn't get hit, but Ryn twisted fast and got away from him to do Force knew what ...

Anakin threw himself after her, tackling her and dragging her under him. Ryn struggled fiercely, writhing in his grip until he was half-afraid that she would hurt herself trying to get away. He hung on, grimly determined to finish this conversation if it killed him.

He wrapped his fingers around Ryn's slender wrists and forced them over her head, grinding them into the rough wooden planks of the deck, and put all his weight into holding her down.

Ryn arched against his grip, those beautiful Lorethan muscles standing out everywhere as she closed her eyes and strained into him, her body lifting off the deck to shove against his. Anakin doubted whether she even remembered that they had an audience, but he was burningly aware of it, so he rolled hard to his right and kicked open the hatch that led belowdecks.

"Down!" he gasped, shoving at Ryn, but she just pushed back, and in the end he just wrapped his arms around her, pinning hers to her sides, and dropped them both through the opening despite her struggles.

They broke apart as they hit the bottom. Anakin didn't give Ryn a chance to recover; he dragged her to her feet and slammed her into the nearest wall, pinning her there with a forearm across her chest. "Ryn, I am _trying_ to apologize here -"

Ryn wrenched her hands free, fisted her fingers in his hair, and dragged his mouth down to hers.

The kiss was electrifying. Anakin felt the shock of it everywhere - shooting sparks behind his eyes, jumpstarting a new rhythm in his blood, and tingling in his fingers, which were now somehow digging into Ryn's hard, slender hips.

He shoved her roughly into the wall again, felt the planks scrape his knuckles raw. _Too rough, don't -_

She bit into his lip and he felt the sting as he tasted blood.

_Oh. Okay._

Ryn growled in satisfaction and sucked, hard. Anakin felt his breath go in one long rush and ground into her, stunned but _ready_.

He might have growled a little himself.

Ryn wrapped her legs around his waist and levered herself up to shrug out of her jacket. Anakin didn't even hear it hit the floor; he was too busy taking advantage of his position to nuzzle his way into her cleavage. He slid his hands under the thin black shirt she was wearing to strip it over her head, revealing the hot naked skin beneath.

He dragged his hands rough over her bare skin as she slid down to meet his hips, heard her hoarse laughter. She danced in his hands, grinding their hips together, moaning softly as she tugged at his Jedi tunic.

Anakin leaned back to drag it over his head and nearly shouted aloud when he felt Ryn's mouth wet on his bare chest, kissing her way lower.

_Forcewhatareyou ..._ He groaned and hauled her upright again, searing her mouth with kisses and dragging her hips to his with both hands, lifting her onto her toes.

Ryn shoved him back and he had just time to think, _What?_ before he hit the deck and landed sprawling with Ryn straddling his hips, riding him hard.

It was good, but ... Anakin rolled to get on top and held her down, trailing burning kisses everywhere he could reach, leaving faint blood stains from his bitten lip.

Ryn growled again, writhing and fighting him for control, but he nudged her thighs and she parted for him, wrapping her legs around his hips again, shouting as they found the right fit together.

Anakin let out a strangled yell as Ryn ran her hands down his back. He could feel her heat even through both their layers of clothing, sweet and insistent, demanding. He rolled his hips and pressed harder to hear her shriek in frustration while the pressure built, and then she started dancing under him and he ran his hands over her again and tried to match her rhythm.

"Anakin, _ohhhh_ ..." Ryn sucked in a sharp breath and clutched at him, hard enough to leave bruises as her eyes flew wide, dazzled with ecstasy. "Unghhhh ..."

He stayed with her until the last of the body-wracking undulations died away and he could hear in her shuddering breath the grateful stutter of relief.

_Force, yes._

He dipped his head and kissed her again, more gently this time, and eased back despite the ache in his groin.

"Hey," he whispered, brushing her tear-stained cheek with his fingers.

"Hey," Ryn whispered back, chest heaving, still a little dazed. She traced the outline of his jaw with shaking fingers, trembling beneath him. "You ... you didn't ..."

"I'll be okay," Anakin said, and he meant it, really he did, but then she stretched up to kiss him again, her lips swollen and parted, and he could _feel_ her still hot and throbbing, and when he leaned in to claim her mouth one last time, it was too much, or maybe just enough, and he gave in and kissed her back, slow and deep, while his universe turned inside out.

"Unghhh," said Anakin, rolling away so he wouldn't get her messy, too.

_Wow. Oh. Wow._

"That," he panted, practically giddy in a way he'd never felt before. "That was ..." _Amazing,_ he'd been going to say. Maybe even _wizard_ if he didn't catch himself in time. But then he got a good look at Ryn's face and froze.

"That was awful," she said, finishing for him in a choked little voice, head hanging. "Anakin, I'm so sorry." She snatched her shirt off the floor and pounded up the ladder to the deck, leaving Anakin to stare after her, stunned.

_What? What did I do?_


	10. Chapter 10

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER TEN**

Going after Ryn to try and talk it out didn't sound like such a good idea, given what happened last time he tried that. Anakin still wasn't sure what exactly he'd doe wrong, but he was positive he didn't want to have another fight in public.

_I may be a slow learner, but I get there eventually._

He cleaned himself up as best he could in the ship's tiny, rudimentary 'fresher and washed his hands carefully, remembering Vokara Che's instructions. _Too bad she didn't teach me some other things._

Like the right way to describe the fertile phase of a humanoid female's menstrual cycle. Or the kind of affect it had one women, that might have been good to know. He couldn't help wondering how much of Ryn's intense reactions were normal for all women and how much was a by-product of her Lorethan heritage.

He could feel her above his head now, seeping misery into the Force; at least their little encounter had stripped the last vestiges of healing-induced fogginess from his perceptions. He could sense everything sharply now, and especially Ryn's bleeding pain.

_Why_ was harder to grasp. Even through the haze of sex-blurred memory, Anakin was sure she'd kissed him first. She'd thrown him to the floor, too, and if he'd switched places on her after that ... well, she hadn't exactly seemed to mind. And he _knew_ she'd come at the end, however women did that. He'd felt the pulsing inside her –– and besides, she'd left bruises. He couldn't find any reason to think she'd wanted to stop –– until she told him it was awful and fled the scene.

_I'm a Jedi. I should have known better. I _did_ know better._

The only thing he could really give himself credit for at this point was remembering –– in a vague, I-don't-want-to-think-about-it kind of way –– to keep his pants up. Of course, that was partly because he'd been in too much of a hurry at the time to stop for anything so practical, but at least Ryn wasn't going to get pregnant from this mess.

He had a feeling Shmi wouldn't have been all that proud.

* * *

Evinne found him sitting gingerly on one of the filthy hammocks strung across the open space in the hold. He and Ryn had torn a few of them loose on their rampage; they lay tangled on the floor now, evidence of indiscretion.

"Hey, Kid," she said roughly. "How're you doing?"

The sympathy in her voice made him cringe. "I'm okay." He sat up cautiously and swung his legs over the side –– very carefully; he'd learned the hard way about moving too fast in a hammock –– to make room for her. "How ... uh ... how's Ryn?"

Evinne shrugged as she settled in beside him, equally cautious. "She's Ryn, so it's hard to tell. Worried about you, I know that much." She nudged him with an elbow. "Are you going to tell me why?"

"I wish I knew," Anakin answered.

Evinne sighed. "Yeah, I was afraid of that." She rubbed her eyes wearily, and Anakin remembered that this was her brother they were going to overthrow. "Listen, Skywalker, I'm on your side here. You got thrown into something you had no way to get ready for, and you're doing the best you can. I get that."

Anakin was beginning to have a bad feeling about this conversation. "But?"

"But you have to make up your mind," Evinne said bluntly. "Because I don't think Ryn can. She's weak for you, and the warriors will doubt her because of it. We can't afford that. The strength of a Lorethan war-band lies in its unity. That demands unquestioning loyalty, to each other and to our leader. If those warriors up there can't trust Ryn, it puts us all in danger."

More _athelan_ nonsense. It was a wonder any Lorethan dared to sneeze without consulting twelve others. "What do you want me to do?" Anakin asked tiredly.

"Well, if you could avoid calling her a slut in public, that might be a good start," Evinne answered, her tone dry. "Keep your private confrontations private."

"I never called her ... that!" Anakin retorted, aggrieved. "I wouldn't ––"

"You compared her to a bitch in heat," Evinne cut in. There was a hard edge in her voice, a trace of real anger. "We all heard you. I don't care how you treat Ryn in your spare time ––" _Liar,_ Anakin thought hotly "––but in front of the others you have got to work together." She took a deep breath. "This is what it means to be a leader, Anakin. No one said it would be easy."

She was sincere, but ...

"You don't understand," Anakin groaned, passing a hand over his face. "The ... heat thing ... was all a misunderstanding. Ryn said she was fertile now, and I was trying to remember about mammalian reproduction, and I said the wrong thing. I didn't mean to insult her, I swear. She just –– she wouldn't let me explain." _So somehow we ended up trying to have sex with our clothes on._

Evinne stared at him. Opened her mouth, closed it slowly, tried again. "Why was Ryn telling you about her fertility?"

"Um," said Anakin. _It made sense at the time. Mostly._ "She was explaining why I shouldn't touch her. I think."

Evinne gave him a Look. "Good job."

Anakin winced. "Yeah. That part kind of got lost."

"You think?" Evinne demanded acidly. "How did you get from _don't touch me_ to tackling her on the deck?"

"I'm ... not exactly sure," Anakin admitted reluctantly. "It's all kind of ... hazy."

Evinne grunted. "Well, I guess great sex will do that to you."

"Um." Anakin tried ineffectually to shift his weight in the hammock. "We didn't ... uh ..."

Evinne lifted one eyebrow. "Are you telling me Ryn was screaming your name because you're such a great dejarik player?"

"No!" Anakin exclaimed, mortified. "I mean ... we didn't get that far." He pinched the bridge of his nose. "You just love to torture me, don't you?"

"It's what I do," Evinne conceded, without a trace of repentance. "But Skywalker ... there are times when achieving physical union is not the primary goal. Satisfying a woman ––"

"Stop it!" Anakin yelped, jumping to his feet so fast Evinne had to grab a support beam to keep from being flipped over backwards. "I have to take this from _Obi-Wan_, but ––"

"Skywalker, calm down," Evinne said placatingly, holding up both hands as the hammock stopped swinging. "I'm sorry, okay? I just meant ... you were trying to do the responsible thing, and I respect that." She lowered her hands and watched him carefully. "I have to ask you ... what does it mean?"

Anakin stared at her, uncomprehending. "What?"

Evinne wet her lips. "Are you ... uh ... lovers now? Because," she added hastily, "because that would be fantastic. Really. I think you should do it. Better for everyone." She cleared her throat. "Yeah."

"No, we're not ... that," Anakin said cautiously. "At least, I don't think we are. I ––what's got into you, anyway?"

"Nothing!" Evinne said, too quickly. "I just think you should talk to Ryn. In private, this time."

_I don't think that's such a good idea,_ Anakin thought, remember the look on Ryn's face as she sprinted up the ladder. "I'm not sure she's talking to me right now."

Evinne's face set in hard lines. "You'd better get sure," she warned him. "I meant what I said before –– this kind of uncertainty is dangerous. Get your shit together and work things out with Ryn, before things go from bad to worse." She looked as grim as he Anakin had ever seen her. "It's on you, Skywalker. I don't think Ryn can handle it."

A lot of retorts crossed his mind, like _then why did you let her take charge?_ but in the end Anakin knew the answer to all of them: _because there was no one else_.

_Stang it._

Anakin blew out a breath. _I can do this. I have to._

"Right," he said uneasily, jitters leaping in his gut because Obi-wan should have been here, he wasn't _ready_ for this ... _Easy. Your focus determines your reality._ "I'll talk to her. Soon."

"Good luck," Evinne said, and shrugged in response to his quizzical look. "You're going to need it."

* * *

Hours of intensive meditation had served to convince Obi-Wan of the improbable. Despite his memory of being taken aboard a spaceship, despite the fact that his cell had not changed in any discernible way, he was forced to admit that he was no longer in space. Not even sitting on a planet's surface, however well-concealed. No, Obi-Wan Kenobi was currently _underground_.

He looked around at the bare little walls of his cell, imagined them surrounded by meters of rock, and tried not to shudder.

_Yaddle survived it for centuries. I can manage until Anakin comes for me._

Except he didn't _have_ centuries to live, and Anakin was going to have a harder time finding him than either of them had expected.

_Easy. Your focus determines your reality._

_ Just breathe._


	11. Chapter 11

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER ELEVEN**

By the time he got on deck, Anakin had pretty well decided that talking to Ryn would be a bad idea, for all the reasons he had thought of before: namely, that he was hard-pressed to remember a time lately when he'd talked to Ryn and _not_ made things worse. Maybe the story about circumcision and the _ylfe_, but even then, that had been mostly Ryn talking, not him.

_So listen, Idiot._

He glanced at Ryn, hanging high up in the rigging for no discernible reason.

_Okay. Here goes._

He managed to climb the rigging himself all right –– something of an accomplishment, considering his lack of experience –– and settled himself beside her by way of imitation.

"So," he said, not even bothering to try and hide his awkwardness.

Ryn cast him a wary look. "Yes?"

There wasn't really any good way to say it. "You –– you said it was awful."

Ryn nodded miserably, not looking at him. "I know. I had no right ... Anakin, you have no idea how sorry I am."

Anakin wanted to grab her and shake her until she started making sense. "I, uh, well, I'm sorry too," he offered cautiously. _I'm sorry you didn't like it._

"Anakin, none of it was your fault." Ryn did finally look at him then, and he saw that her eyes were red from crying, but they were also anxious with concern. "Are you okay?"

"Me?" Anakin said, wondering what galaxy she was living in where teenage boys didn't like sex. "Yeah, I'm fine. I mean, if you're fine."

"Yeah," Ryn said. "Yeah, I'm okay."

"So, we're ... good, then?"

"I guess so."

They spent a few seconds looking everywhere but at each other.

"Anyway," Anakin said finally, breaking the tense silence, "The main thing is that we can, uh, still work together." That sounded inane. "I mean, it doesn't have to, you know, change anything."

"Sure," said Ryn.

She had never sounded more skeptical, but Anakin didn't have any better ideas, so he cleared his throat and came out with "Okay!" in what he hoped was a decisive tone.

"Okay," Ryn echoed mournfully.

_Because more sex would be bad. _

_ I think. _

_ Maybe._

"So," he said again. "Do you, uh, want to get down from here?"

Ryn hitched her shoulders. "Okay."

"Yeah," said Anakin. "That would probably be good."

They climbed down the ropes without speaking. All things considered, Anakin figured that was the best they could do.

* * *

The conclusion that he was buried alive somewhere beyond the Outer Rim had altered Obi-Wan's estimateion of his chances for escape, but it had done nothing to help him guess a more specific location, and probing Granta Omega with conversation gambits was proving to be a useless gesture.

The Force still proved elusive. He could feel its presence, but ... he could not _grasp_ it.

And Omega was still goading him at irregular intervals.

_Come on, Anakin. Any time now._

* * *

Ryn found Anakin standing in the bows with his hands clasped behind his back, a stance she found endlessly attractive without knowing why.

_Behave yourself,_ she told her thudding heart.

She was used to waiting out Anakin's meditations; he knew she was there, and he would acknowledge her when he was ready. In this case it wasn't long before he spoke: "What is it?"

"We've sighted land," Ryn answered.

"I heard."

"Hallan thinks it's Ennysrhun."

"I hope he's right."

Ryn fought back a growl of frustration. Talking to Anakin wasn't supposed to be this _hard_. "I'm thinking maybe we should offer him a place in the war-band."

Anakin gave up on his meditation and turned to face her. "He's already said he's not interested."

"I know what he says." Ryn shrugged helplessly. "But he _feels_ ... I don't know. Adrift, maybe."

"You can't take care of the whole galaxy, Ryn."

She couldn't help but grin. "That's the droid calling the robot a machine."

Anakin stared at her blankly. "Huh?"

"Sorry. Just an old saying. It means you're in no position to talk, Master Fix-It."

Anakin's mouth tightened. "I haven't been fixing much of anything lately."

"Well, unless you count Fjornel's biodome. But I guess that's only important to, you know, _everyone who lives there._"

Anakin grinned at her exasperation, but there was a tiredness behind his eyes she wasn't used to seeing there.

She resisted the urge to reach out and touch him in comfort and said, "What?"

Anakin gave a frustrated little sigh and ran his fingers through his hair. "It's Obi-Wan," he admitted quietly. "I can't feel him, not really. I mean, I _think_ he's there, but I can't tell where he is or how he's feeling, or ... you know what I mean?" Ryn shook her head wordlessly and he signed again. "That's okay," he muttered. "I don't, either."

Ryn grimaced in sympathy. "Maybe he's just really far away?"

Anakin shrugged. "I don't know. I've never sensed anything like it. And ... he's very faint." He swallowed. "What if he's hurt?"

"Then we'll come for him as fast as we can," Ryn answered. "Which is what we're doing now."

Anakin exhaled sharply. "I want to do more."

"I know," Ryn said. "You always do." That didn't seem to satisfy him any more than it did Ryn, so she leaned forward a little and said, "We _will_ find him, Anakin. We won't stop until we do."

Anakin's shoulders slumped. "It's just taking a long time," he said wearily. "They could be anywhere by now."

That was true, but ... "We'll get better information once we reach Raith Uithne," she offered. "Maybe the Rangers have found him already. And if not, we may learn something when we catch Stevan Ardel. He won't stand fast under questioning, I'm sure of it."


	12. Chapter 12

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER TWELVE**

"He won't stand fast under questioning, I'm sure of it."

The way she said that ... "You're talking about torture," Anakin said slowly, disbelieving.

"Torture isn't a reliable means of getting information," Ryn retorted. "Beings will say anything." She shifted. "What I'm talking about is far worse." Pause. "I can break him."

Anakin frowned. "Break him?"

"Break his mind. Some beings never recover from that kind of interrogation. But it _does_ work."

"Ryn, we can't ..." _Obi-Wan wouldn't want this. He wouldn't. _

"_You_ can't," Ryn answered grimly. "I can. I think." She didn't sound happy about it.

"We'll find another way," Anakin said, even though his sympathy for Stevan Ardel was distinctly limited. They couldn't defy everything Obi-Wan believed in to save him. There had to be another way.

_I _am_ coming, Master._

* * *

Ryn couldn't stop thinking about him.

Every way she turned, Anakin was right there, and if he wasn't, she wished he was. She _felt_ him everywhere, not just in her head but under her skin, and the memory of the way he'd touched her ignited nerves she hadn't known she had.

_Anakin, come fuck me._

She couldn't say anything, of course. Anakin was a Jedi, or trying to be, and she had already outlined for Evinne all the reasons why a Padawan had to be off-limits.

She couldn't say anything, but she couldn't help her feelings, either, and every time she thought of him she felt her body flush with heat.

_Anakin ..._

She got through the night mostly by pacing the deck. Lying still in her hammock below was out of the question: in the first place, she couldn't make herself be still for any length of time, and in the next place, everyone could _feel_ her hot yearning. Except maybe Anakin, who was at least doing a good job of _acting_ like nothing was wrong.

Ryn herself was using up all the energy that would have gone into pretending just trying not to grab him and drag him to the deck.

She stirred inside every time he moved.

_This is ridiculous._

But her unruly body didn't care. By the time they landed on the shore of Ennysrhun, up a rough-edged inlet that dropped them in the midst of seeming wilderness, she felt reading to crawl out of her skin.

"You okay?" Evinne asked her in an undertone as they disembarked.

"Yeah," Ryn answered, just as softly. "Just _really_ eager."

Evinne snorted. "I know the feeling. If you decide to go for Skywalker again, try to catch him alone this time. The rest of us don't need to know how good his mouth is."

Ryn stifled a groan. "I didn't exactly _decide_ the first time. Just lost my mind."

"Is _that_ what they call it these days?" Evinne asked drily.

"Shut up," Ryn muttered, and the sound of Evinne's laughter followed her up the bank.

* * *

Having commandeered Hallan and his ship instead of hiring passage, they were able to simply pick their landing point and obviate the need to find another set of sleipniri, slipping the slender ship into a mostly-hidden inlet some leagues distant from the hill-fort they were making for. Hallan, for reasons best known to himself –– he grumbled an explanation that failed to explain –– chose to come with them, leaving his ship concealed by the woods and the turns of the inlet itself.

They needed all the help they could get, so Ryn nodded brusquely and welcomed him along. Makesh caught her eye and lifted a brow in question, but she could only shrug helplessly: _you got a better idea?_

He sighed.

Meanwhile their landing-place was roughly half a day's jog from the dun where she had grown up –– between stints of fosterage and fighting, anyway. Ryn would have been glad of the chance to stretch her legs a little and work out some of the muscle tension that had been building lately, but it was quickly becoming apparent that Deokh and Lihamh had a low opinion of their Jedi companion and were determined to share it, making the journey less than pleasant.

Ryn wanted to choke both of them, but she kept swallowing her words, guiltily aware that she was part of the problem: one of the things they resented was the way Anakin had put his hands on her, a noblewoman. It was classist and sexist and a little xenophobic, too, but really it was the ground they had chosen to fight on, because neither of them wanted to take on Makesh and they were anxiously jockeying for second place.

Things came unexpectedly to a head two hours into their march, when Ryn, jogging along in step with Anakin and enjoying, for the first time in weeks, the comforting familiarity of his presence –– because they'd run circuits in the Temple together dozens of times and for the moment at least they could do _something_ together that was not fraught with angst –– stepped wrong, twisting her ankle a little out of true, and Anakin stuck out a hand to steady her.

"Y'okay?"

"Yeah," Ryn panted, skipping back into step. "I'm fine."

Lihamh made some obnoxious kissing noises at their backs, accompanied by a crude gesture. Ryn was about to ignore the whole thing, but then Deokh added, "Not nearly enough, if you ask me. That's what happens when you send a boy to do a man's job."

"No boys here," Ryn answered without turning.

Deokh snorted. "Spoken like a girl who has never felt the difference."

It wasn't the words so much as the animosity behind them that irked her. Ryn had grown up surrounded by the rough talk of men on campaign, until she hardly gave it a thought; but there was a vicious undercurrent to Deokh's signature now that grated a warning on her nerves.

She stopped abruptly and turned to face them, forcing the two to jerk to a halt while the others piled up behind. "This _boy_ could drop a mountain on you with his mind," she pointed out dangerously. "I suggest you guard your tongue."

Lihamh had the grace to blush, but Deokh stared back at her, brazen. "Jedi don't fight."

"You are mistaken," Ryn returned, unmoved. "But more to the point: Padawan Skywalker is a member of this war-band. If you cannot treat him with respect, you can swim back to the mainland by yourself. Is that clear?"

Deokh held her gaze for a long sullen minute, apparently thinking she would care. But in the grand scheme of things, Deokh was just a petty thug with delusions of manhood, and Ryn had faced much worse. She held her stance and waited for Deokh's grudging nod.

"You are my war leader," he muttered at last, eyes lowered. "I will obey."

It wasn't gracious, but then they didn't need him to be pleasant, just compliant. "Good," Ryn said. "One more thing: if you take it upon yourself to speculate about my sexual activity again, I will personally rip off your dick and feed it to you raw. I just thought you should know."

She turned on her heel and fell back into step beside Anakin, who looked askance at her.

"Was that really necessary?" he asked.

"Which part?"

"Any of it!"

"Then the short answer is: yes."

"And the long answer?"

She quirked an eyebrow. "You really want a lecture on Lorethan culture right now?"

Anakin groaned. "Never mind."

"There you go."


	13. Chapter 13

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER THIRTEEN**

Obi-Wan strained to access the Force, the dammed stream of it, pushing himself deeper and deeper, stretching the limits of what his merely human mind could feel, reaching until it almost _hurt_ ... and sought for the thread of light that would be Anakin's presence in that flow.

_Anakin. Hear me, Padawan ..._

[-]

Anakin missed a step and stumbled, reaching for his best friend's arm.

"Anakin?" she asked, steadying him. "What is it?"

He struggled to breathe, groping after that fleeting impression. "Obi-Wan," he gasped. "I felt him!"

"You felt him?" Ryn repeated. "Where?"

"I don't know," he gasped. "I could only feel him for a second. But – he was _there_, Ryn. He was there, and he was reaching for me."

Ryn put her hand over his and squeezed. "That is good news, Anakin. Maybe tonight, if you meditate – do you think you can find him?"

"I don't know," Anakin said. "But I have to try." None of his efforts to meditate so far had done any good, but now that he knew Obi-Wan was out there, somewhere, reaching for him, he couldn't just give up.

"Let me know if I can help," Ryn said, and they started running again.

[-]

_Padawan, hear me ..._

They came in sight of Rath Uithen just past the middle of the afternoon, when the sunlight falling from above the Western Sea struck the white stone of the walls and gleamed on the rooftops, and the land lay dreaming in a golden haze.

Anakin stopped short at the sight, his breath catching in his chest.

"There it is," Ryn said, stopping beside him. "The western seat of Clan Orun. My father's kin have lived here for time out of mind."

"It's ... beautiful," Anakin answered, still staring. "Like something out of a dream."

Ryn laughed. "Well, they do say a seer helped in the building, so maybe it was her dream."

"Romantic nonsense," Evinne asserted sourly, and Ryn shrugged.

"Maybe."

The land was rocky as they approached, and steep: they were in a land of tumbled jagged hills that thrust out into the sea, mountains cut with rough-edged inlets. There were trees in the glens, but the hillsides offered little purchase either for wild growth or farming, and Anakin wondered how the people made a living.

"This is rough country," he observed. "It looks like wilderness."

"There isn't much sentient life here," Ryn agreed. "We are at what the Old Ones called the End of the World – beyond this, there is only ocean. But I love the mountains and the sea, the way they run together here. It's not a common geographical formation."

"It's a wild land," Merach put in from behind them. "They do say there's a lot of old blood among the Orun. On moonless nights you can see them dancing in the forests."

Ryn glanced over her shoulder at the woods they had left behind. "Not that I ever saw," she said. "We do not go near the trees after nightfall."

"Why not?" Anakin asked her.

Ryn hesitated. "The trees are ... awake," she said slowly. "Not sentient, perhaps, but ... unlike the tame trees in the Temple arboretum. These are wild trees, and strange creatures live among them."

"Superstition," Makesh pronounced.

Ryn gave him a considering look. "Not all superstition is folly."

"Not all old wive's tales are wise," he retorted with unexpected heat.

"As you will," Ryn said, shrugging. "I have warned you of the forest – you can heed my words or not."

Makesh subsided, but he wore a dissatisfied expression.

They made their way up the rough mountainside amid wrangling scrub that looked soft but wasn't. There was no track, but with the rath in sight at the top of the hill, they hardly needed one. Ryn led the way, climbing outcroppings of rock and skirting the edge of hidden bogs that appeared sudden below their feet whenever the steepness of the land eased a little. She moved amongst rock and wild country with the surefooted grace of a wild animal, rambling through the rough landscape with an ease not even her fellow Lorethans could match.

_This is home,_ Anakin thought, scrambling along behind her as though he were running a terrain test in the Temple. _This is what it feels like to belong somewhere._

And always, Rath Uithne loomed above, crowning the mountain and looking out to sea.

The land around them looked deserted but wasn't; they were still some distance from the summit when a group sallied forth from the gates – which they could not see, because these faced seaward – to meet them.

Ryn leapt up onto a large outcropping of white stone and stood to wait; the others gathered below her, strangers here.

Evinne moved up to stand at Anakin's shoulder and whisper a translation in his ear.

"Hail, Sithair!" she said. "Blessed the mother that bore thee."

The young lad at the front of the group drew to a halt, squinting at her face. "Is this Areth'ryn that speaks to me now, or some apparition of the darkness?"

"I am Areth'ryn," Ryn said. "You know me, Sithair. And these are my companions."

Sithair appeared unconvinced. "If you are Areth'ryn, you will know the answer to my questions."

"Ask," Ryn said.

"Areth'ryn would know this: what say the runes of power, carved upon her sword?"

"May you always find your way home."

"Areth'ryn would know this: what is the greatest truth of all?"

"That love is always stronger than hate."

"Areth'ryn would know tis: what is the name of the first woman I ever loved?"

Ryn hesitated. "I do not know that," she answered slowly. "You never told me."

Sithair laughed and flung his arms wide. "And only Areth'ryn would know it! It is good to see you, Cousin."

Ryn hopped down from the outcrop and held out her arms to him. "It is good to see you, Sithair."

The boy –– maybe Ferus's age, but it was hard to say –– hugged her briefly and then set his hands on her shoulders and held her at arm's length to study her face. "I thought you were on Coruscant," he said. "What brings you here, in the company of strangers?"

Ryn's presence darkened a little. "A great evil has been done among us," she answered. "I have come to repair it."

"Thanks for clearing that up," Sithair said.

Ryn sighed. "It is a long story. Can we go inside?"

Sithair lifted an admonishing finger. "Only if you promise to take a bath. You smell like a bantha's cunt."

Ryn smacked him on the arm. "Your tongue is as golden as ever. Let me introduce my companions."

She gave their names in what she must have thought was order of rank: Evinne, then Anakin, then Makesh, then Merach, then Lihamh, then Deokh, and Hallan last of all; but at the end Sithair returned his keen eyes to Anakin.

"Welcome to Loreth, Jedi," he said, speaking Basic with great care. "It is long since a Padawan set foot on our soil. Their ... masters ... do not allow it, I think." He tilted his head and regarded Anakin curiously. "You ... do not _feel_ like they say the Jedi feel."

Ryn made shooing motions at him. "Come on, Sithair. You can ask Anakin all about becoming Jedi later, if you want. Right now we _all_ need baths."


	14. Chapter 14

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fanfiction.

**CHAPTER FOURTEEN**

Sithair and the eight young women with him –– Anakin _still_ couldn't get a handle on gender relations in this strange culture; every time he thought he understood how the sexes related to each other, something new came along and stirred the pot and left him as lost as before –– led them up to the crown of the hill, where a beaten path ran around the curving edge of the white stone wall to the seaward side, and the gate opened onto a little ledge with a steep drop on the left hand as the land broke jaggedly away to the crashing sea. They were high enough to be out of reach of the spray, but its roaring was loud in their ears, even as the surface of the water was hidden in its own mist. Anakin shivered and turned away.

The crowd that gathered to meet them as they entered the gates was curiously intense. They watched their princess and her companions enter in watchful silence, betraying no sign of either welcome or hostility. Anakin wanted to ask Evinne what the hell was going on, but her Force presence was as tense as that of the watching crowd.

Sithair made an announcement that Evinne failed to translate; Anakin caught Ryn's name and guessed that maybe he was reporting that he had questioned her and verified her identity. It seemed a curious requirement, among people who should have known her on sight, but Anakin reasoned that maybe Lorethan culture had some deep-seated fear of shapeshifters.

The crowd parted for them to make room, showing no sign of the deference offered them by Sarta's household on Fjornel but lacking also the overt suspicion of Hedfren's villagers. Ryn greeted the waiting people with a very correct Lorethan bow over her hands, paying no heed to the coolness of their reception: "It is good to be home."

She followed Sithair through the crowd without further acknowledgement, but Anakin sensed her sadness and ached for her. What good was it to go home if there was no on there who wanted to see you? He had not understood her before, when she tried to explain what it meant to have a home without love. But if the closest thing she knew was Sithair's oddly adversarial affection ...

_I'm sorry, Ryn._

The space inside the wall was dominated by a large stone structure like an enormous beehive, which seemed to be the dominant mode of building here in any case. Ryn pointed at the looming edifice and said, "That is the ancient dwelling of my fathers, since before Loron came. Bu it stands empty now, and we use it for meetings. The house I grew up in is _there_." She pointed again, this time to the left, at the end of another protuberance of the unruly landscape.

A sprawling wooden structure stood there, with a wide porch that formed more than half a circle, out from the hill and back again. The entire building seemed to be built of joined circles connected by wide curving lines. It looked like the pattern on Ryn's utility belt ... Anakin blinked. That _was_ the pattern on Ryn's utility belt. If one looked down on that house from above, its curious pattern of linking roofs would form the knotwork design etched in the leather.

Ryn glanced at his face and grinned. "Familiar?"

"Yeah," Anakin said. "Does it ... mean anything?"

"Besides that I like knotwork?" She shrugged. "Some say it is the pattern of life."

_How can you know?_ Anakin thought, but he let it go. "It's beautiful."

"There," Ryn said. "See the tower that rises in the back, beyond the rock?"

"Yeah."

"That was my room." She snorted softly. "Kit thought it was funny to _actually_ put the princess in the tower." She caught his look and shrugged again, her all-purpose gesture. "Odd sense of humor."

"Very," Anakin agreed.

"Your room is still there," Sithair cut in. "Everything is just the way you left it."

Ryn blinked. "You kept my room?"

Sithair unexpectedly blushed and looked at his feet. "Well, you know ... just in case."

It wasn't so much the words as the way he said them that made Anakin take a step back and re-evaluate just what kind of "cousins" these were. A quick glance at Evinne showed that she had heard the same thing. Ryn, however, seemed oblivious.

"That was ... thoughtful of you," she said. "But, Sithair, the room should be open for everyone to enjoy. The view from there is amazing."

"I have always thought so."

Ryn gave him a quizzical look. "So open the room."

"That's not ... never mind." Sithair smiled. "You're home now, you can do what you want with it."

Ryn shook her head. "I'm not staying long. That's one of the things we have to talk about. But I'll stay there tonight, thanks."

"Uh," said Sithair, still speaking Basic with careful intonation. "Sure. Whatever you want. I'll see you in the family room after you've finished your bath, yes?"


	15. Chapter 15

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not him, nor am I making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER FIFTEEN**

Anakin was so used to the general lack of concern about nakedness on Loreth by now that he wasn't even surprised when they all showered in the same room. He _was_ a little surprised to find the convenience of rudimentary indoor plumbing, and to see a privacy screen in one corner, heavily decorated with delicate paintings of long-legged birds wading among reeds.

Evinne saw him looking and snorted. "Princess screen," she declared contemptuously. "So the ladies of the house don't have to reveal themselves to prying male eyes."

"It doesn't hurt to keep a little mystery," Ryn countered loftily, but Anakin could see her blushing.

"Oh, come on," Evinne needled her. "Don't you find it just a _little_ constricting?"

Ryn's blush deepened. "We're not all exhibitionists like you."

"Pity," said Evinne. "It's much more fun this way."

Ryn sighed. "I take baths to get clean, not to tease men with what they cannot have."

"How do you know they can't have you?" Evinne demanded. "Sounds like you're judging too early to me."

"They can't have me," Ryn answered definitively. "Especially not here."

Evinne looked around the room in confusion. "You got something against bathing-rooms?"

"No!" Ryn exclaimed. "But I'm not going to take advantage of the members of my household!"

"Think you're that irresistible, do you?"

Ryn gave her a level stare. "Everyone is irresistible with enough power."

"You're such a snob."

"I have a responsibility to these people, Evinne! If acknowledging that makes me a snob, so be it." She kicked free of her boots and set them against the wall, glancing over her shoulder at the older girl as she spoke. "I was born into this power. And maybe I'm not the best person for the job, but I'm the one they've got." She shrugged. "So I have to try." She stopped, taking in their stares. "Oh. Too much speechifying?"

"A little," Evinne said, but she said it without venom. "You're the real thing, aren't you?"

Ryn stopped again, this time in the act of hauling her shirt over her head. "The real what?" she asked, her voice muffled as she peered out of the neck hole with one eye.

"_Athelan_," Evinne said, as Ryn dragged the shirt the rest of the way off. "The old kind. You –– Saints, Ryn. And you called _me_ an exhibitionist."

"Huh?" said Ryn, looking around at the others. "You're all undressing, too!"

"_We_ are not covered in a garden of gorgeous love bruises." She cocked an eye at Anakin. "Skywalker, I never knew you had it in you."

Ryn looked down, but of course she couldn't see the most obvious marks, blooming purple along her delicate collarbone and into the curve of her neck. Or ...

Evinne took her by the shoulder and turned her gently around so expose a set of fingerprints, peeking over the edge of her low-slung pants.

"I'll be damned," Evinne swore softly, reaching out to trace one dusky smudge, and Ryn craned her neck to scowl at her.

"_What?_" she demanded, testily, and Evinne stifled a grin, not very successfully.

"Skywalker's a hard fuck."

"What the hell?" Ryn said, batting her hands away so she could turn back around unimpeded. "What makes you think it's okay to say this stuff?"

Makesh was giving Anakin an ominous look: _you bruised my princess_. (Hallan was sniggering.)

Merach, meanwhile, took what she evidently thought was the soothing approach; she stepped forward and laid a hand on Ryn's bare arm. Ryn regarded her warily. "It's nothing to be ashamed of," she assured the younger woman in heavily accented Basic. "Was he your first?"

"No!" Ryn exclaimed sharply. "I mean, yes! I mean ... we didn't ... you know."

Evinne offered something in Lorethan and Merach nodded sagely. "Of course. Much safer." She glanced over her shoulder at Anakin. "Very responsible."

"Uh," said Anakin.

Ryn glared at him. "Thanks for the help."

That made the others laugh. Lihmah leaned forward to clap him on the shoulder. "Looks like you've been doing good work to me."

Merach snorted. "And what would a man know of such things?" She turned to Ryn. "Well? What do you say? Does the boy have skill?"

"No boys here," Ryn reminded her automatically.

_Not now, Ryn,_ Anakin thought, as the others murmured their approval.

"A good sign," Merach declare. "But for the question of skill ...?"

"Um." Ryn rubbed the bridge of her nose, a habitual gesture that meant she was nervous. "_Skill_ implies experience, which neither of us has. So maybe ... _talent_?"

There was a second's total silence, during which Ryn peered at them uncertainly: _did I get that right?_ and Anakin contemplated his chances of falling through the floor. Then the room erupted in laughter and cheers, whoops of exultation. Even Deokh pumped his fist in approbation, his earlier animosity evidently forgotten. Makesh broke his aloofness enough to give Anakin a friendly punch on the arm and flip him a reluctant thumbs-up.

Over the din, Ryn caught his eye and cringed apologetically. _Sorry_, she mouthed at him, and suddenly the tightness in Anakin's chest eased a little.

He shrugged back, equally chagrined –– the bruises were his own fault, after all.

Evinne finally managed to bring the enthusiasm to some sort of order, patting her hands in the air for silence. "There isn't time to celebrate properly," she declaimed regretfully. "But we should mark the occasion somehow, yes?" She glanced searchingly at Ryn. "Did you come?"

"Um," said Ryn. "Yeah? But I don't think the Jedi really ––"

"Celebrate these things?" Evinne finished for her. "Of course not. But you're not in the Temple any more." She patted Ryn on the shoulder. "I'm going to go have a word with Sithair. Who, by the way, is going to be very jealous, so cheer up, Shorty: you might get two men for the price of one." She picked up her shirt and marched out, radiating determination.

Ryn stared after her, biting her lip in consternation. "I've got a bad feeling about this."


	16. Chapter 16

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not he, nor am I making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER SIXTEEN**

They lost the wrestling match that ensued almost as soon as Evinne had closed the door behind her, and ended up standing in a shower together, warm water cascading everywhere as Merach and Lihamh tried to pull off what was left of their clothes. Makesh and Deokh evidently felt they had done their part by forcing them under the spray, while Anakin harbored a dark suspicion that Hallan was jerking off just the other side of the partition.

"Get off me!" Ryn spluttered, spitting water and swatting at Merach's hands, scrabbling at her pants. "I can undress my own damn self!"

Merach laughed low. "Yes, but will you?"

"Damn it, I'm in the shower!" Ryn tugged herself free, bumping into Anakin and sending him backward into Lihamh's arms. "I don't want to wear wet pants!"

Lihamh grunted as he shoved Anakin upright again. "You're solid for a lad," he muttered, seizing the opportunity to jerk Anakin's laces loose. "There you go," he added, and practically threw him forward into Ryn.

This time he was ready, and reached into the Force to steady both of them, wrapping one hand around Ryn's arm.

"Thanks," she gasped, stooping to peel off her soaked pants. She hopped on one foot and then the other, struggling with them, hurling abuse at Merach. "...and, you know, this would have been a lot easier if they hadn't been wet!" she finished, throwing the soggy fabric at the older woman's head.

Merach snagged the pants out of the air. "But not nearly as funny."

Ryn shut her a dirty look before turning back to Anakin, who was having only slightly less difficulty with his own soaked garments. "Hey," she said softly, touching his arm. "You okay?"

He was furious and humiliated and confused as hell. But the concern in Ryn's voice ...

He caught her hand in his and gave her fingers a quick squeeze, meeting her eyes briefly. "Yeah." He finally dragged the pants off and dumped them on the floor, earning a satisfied whoop from Lihamh. "I'm okay. But Evinne isn't going to be, when I'm finished with her."

Ryn's low laughter –– and probably also her nakedness –– stirred his groin. _Oh, come on. Not here._ "Revenge, Padawan Skywalker? That's not very Jedi of you."

Anakin scowled at her. "This isn't revenge. It's justice."

Deokh yelled at them, encouraging them to take off their underwear. Ryn stuck her head out from under the spray to call him several names and insist that she would take off her underwear when he went to his own shower, did he think she was a trained lizard-monkey? Makesh slapped Deokh on the back of the head ... and just like that, their tormentors disbanded to take care of their own affairs.

Anakin stared after them in surprise, not quite grasping the sudden changes in mood, and Ryn sidled closer, drawing his attention.

"Try not to be too hard on them," she said, very softly. "They mean well. I know it must seem strange to an outsider, but ... this is friendly behavior."

Anakin glanced pointedly at the trail of forcibly removed clothing. Ryn winced.

"I know," she said. "Really. I've lived on Coruscant. But I was raised here. I know they're not laughing _at_ us, they want to laugh _with_ us." She looked down, her eyes shielded by lashes starred with water droplets. "If this had happened with anyone else ..."

"What?" Anakin asked her. His throat felt tight. "What aren't you telling me?"

"This could be a happy time for me," Ryn admitted, keeping her voice low. "I could finally be accepted in my own right: not as Kit's awkward younger sister, but as a Lorethan woman. Take my place among my people." She scrubbed her face with her hands, muffling her words. "I could have everything I ever wanted –– today." She dropped her hands and met his eyes with a gleam of bleak humor. "Except you don't want this, do you? You don't want to belong here."

Anakin stared at her. "I'm sorry," he said finally.

"No, don't be." Ryn offered him a rueful smile. "You can't help it."

Anakin shifted. "I just want to find Obi-Wan."

"I know."

"Is this ... some kind of rite of passage, or something?"

Ryn frowned. "If you mean 'is there a ritual,' then no. It's all very informal. But having sex for the first time –– even though technically we didn't –– is something to celebrate. We hope, anyway. Maybe it's especially important in a culture where there has been so much death. Sex is like ... the ultimate affirmation of life. And having sex isn't just a gift you give each other, it's a gift you give the community. Strengthening old ties, offering the chance of new life." She heaved a deep breath that was almost a sob. "So usually the first time a girl ... there's a lot of good-natured teasing, but the girl's friends throw a party, and build a bower, and bring mead, so the ... the couple can spend a few days drinking and making love." It's not until Ryn rubs her eyes that Anakin realizes she is crying. "It's ... rough, maybe, but it's a way of saying _yes_ to the girl's choice, you know? Welcoming her as part of the group. And the man usually gets an arm-ring to mark the fact that he was chosen. But ... that doesn't make any sense ... because the Jedi ... wouldn't let you wear it ... even if you wanted to!"

_Yeah, that's clearly the problem here._ "Ryn, I ––"

"No, it's okay." Ryn sniffed. "I know you don't want me. Any of this. But there was a time when I _did_ want this, very much."

Anakin swallowed. "What do you want me to do?"

Ryn handed him the soap. "Take your shower."


	17. Chapter 17

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER SEVENTEEN**

They found Sithair in the family room, whose name Ryn explained in an aside to Anakin: "The noble family doesn't have much privacy as a rule. This is a place we can go and be just a family for a while. I never spent much time in here because we didn't use it much after my father left. But Kit says it used to be very nice."

Anakin kept his opinion of Ryn's parents to himself with an effort. Insulting her family wasn't going to help things.

Sithair was standing near the southern extreme of the curving wall, admiring the sunset, when they entered; as they filed in he turned and bowed. "You have not been frank with me, Cousin," he admonished Ryn. "Padawan Skywalker, I hear congratulations are in order."

"Uh," said Anakin. _I don't like the sound of this._ "Thank you ... sir."

There was a moment's awkward silence. Then Sithair grinned. "Hardly, Jedi. I'm afraid you quite outrank me." He bowed to Ryn. "Milady, your home awaits you."

Ryn waved him off. "Don't be silly, Sithair. You know I'm not here for the house. Have the Rangers brought any word?"

Sithair's eyes widened. "The Rangers? No. Word of what?"

Ryn looked at Evinne, who grimaced. "All right," the golden-haired Lorethan said. "Here is our situation ..."

When Evinne had finished explaining about her clan's involvement in Obi-Wan's capture and their detour to seek healing for Ryn and Anakin, Sithair folded his arms and gave his "cousin" a worried look. "You're in deep, Areth'ryn," he said. "Making war on Ardel? And this business with the young Jedi –– are you sure you're all right?"

"I am as well as the Healers could make me," Ryn answered. "That's good enough to go on with."

"Encouraging," Sithair answered drily. He straightened. "So what is your plan?"

Ryn squared her shoulders. "Muster a weaponstake and sail east for Ardel's lands. Take the fort as fast we can and hold it against all comers. With any luck, Stevan will know Omega's whereabouts. If not, then at least we will no longer have to contend with Clan Ardel's warriors as we hunt."

Sithair frowned. "Rath Ar-Deilan is well-nigh impregnable," he pointed out. "How do you intend to take it?"

Ryn pulled a scrap of the local plant-based flimsiplast substitute from her utility belt and strode forward to spread it on the table. The others crowded around to see.

"I will lead an attack on the main gate here," she said, tapping a little door marked off on what was apparently a detailed drawing of the fortress. "Evinne will take a small team and skirt the cliff-wall to come in here." She touched an even smaller opening at the edge of the sketch. "Once inside, they will secure Stevan and his father ––"

"_My_ father," Evinne reminded her dolefully, and Anakin realized they had discussed this before.

"I know," Ryn said. "I'm sorry. It has to be done." She met Sithair's eyes. "It's a good move all around, Sithair."

"It's dangerous as all hell," Sithair growled. "Not that that's ever stopped you before."

"I know it's risky," Ryn admitted. "But it's still the best chance we're going to get. We can't hunt for Omega with Ardel running interference for him. In the first place, we'd never reach the criminal, and in the second we'd be starting a civil war, in which the Jedi would feel compelled to get involved. I don't think any of us want the Jedi arriving _en masse_, or settling warships on Lorethan soil."

"The Jedi don't have warships," Anakin interrupted.

"They will have," Ryn answered grimly.

"Either way," Evinne cut in, "securing my clan first will keep us from trying to fight or evade our own forces. It is critical that Omega's true nature be revealed to my father and brother, before more damage is done."

"I wouldn't harbor any illusions about your brother's innocence," Ryn warned her. "He loves power."

Evinne stiffened. "Are you calling my brother a traitor?"

"He couldn't be a traitor," Ryn said. "His loyalty has always been to himself."

Evinne started forward, her face like murder, but Anakin caught her by the arm and jerked her to a halt. "He tried to have Ryn killed," he reminded her, not gently. "She's got a right to be upset."

Evinne turned on him, ready to do violence, but Sithair interrupted.

"Wait," he said. "Stevan tried to have you killed? When?"

"On Coruscant," Ryn said. "A couple of weeks ago."

"Almost three," Anakin said.

"We were never able to prove anything," Evinne muttered, tugging her arm free. She took in the looks of disbelief the others sent her and shrugged resentfully. "Yes, all right, I'll admit it was suspicious."

"_Thank you_," Ryn said tartly, and returned her gaze to Sithair. "Send out the riders tonight. We can't win this through numbers anyway, so ask only for warriors without small children. I won't make orphans in this unless I have you."

"You'll have to," Evinne said, back on form.

"Let's not rush," Ryn answered. To Sithair, she added, "Tell them to meet in the glen of the white circle by sunset tomorrow and to bring their own sleipniri. At dawn we ride."

Sithair nodded slowly. "It shall be done."

"Thank you, Sithair." Ryn straightened. "If you will excuse me, it is some days since I have slept. Our guests will need ––"

"I have had a room made ready for Aesin'Evinne Ardel," Sithair said swiftly. "There are blankets for the others –– in the lore-room, since the great hall will not be quiet for some hours, while supper is preparing."

Ryn laid her hand on his shoulder and murmured something in Lorethan, making Sithair's eyes gleam bright with pleasure before turning to Anakin. "Will you be all right on the floor with the others?"

Anakin nodded. "I'll be fine."

"Are you sure? We can ––"

"Maybe he'd rather lie down with you," Evinne suggested, and Ryn rolled her eyes.

"We can find a room for you, if you'd rather," she finished instead.

"I'll be fine," Anakin repeated.

"Very well. Sithair? Wake me for anything."


	18. Chapter 18

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER EIGHTEEN**

_When you are at peace, passive ..._

Obi-Wan tried again to relinquish all emotion and simply let himself drift on the current of the Force. But he could not _feel_ the Force, though he knew it must be there, all around him. The most logical explanation was that he was being drugged in the food and water the serving droid occasionally brought to him - always meagre, at best - but Obi-Wan could find no other symptoms save his inability to sense the Force. And even that felt more like a change in the Force than a change in him: as though he were hearing echoes of it from a great distance. But how could anyone, even Omega, hold the Force at bay? It didn't make sense.

_Don't make assumptions, Obi-Wan,_ Qui-Gon's voice reminded him. _Keep your mind clear._

_Yes, Master._

[]

Ryn climbed the stairs to her tower room and pulled the heavy curtain shut. But instead of going to bed at once, she crossed to a small chest and withdrew from it a bundle not much bigger than her two fists, wrapped in silk. This she lay on the floor and carefully unwrapped.

The small incense burner and four meditation crystals lay there, just as she had left them. Ryn trailed her fingertips over the tools of her practice, whose near-twins lay buried in the Jedi Archives. She had been right not to take the originals with her to Coruscant. Tongiht she would need all power of their legacy.

Kneeling in the middle of her bedroom floor, Ryn formed a circle around herself at the center. She lit the incense burner with a striker from her utility belt and held it cupped in her hands.

"To the Saints who have gone before and now rest in the embrace of the Almighty, I beseech you, hear my prayer ..."

[]

Anakin could not sleep. He had always been a light sleeper, always troubled by dreams, but this was more. He was ... _worried_, as no Jedi should be. Worried for Obi-Wan, who had been gone too long, and now worried for Ryn as well - Ryn, who could be _happy_, if he would just say the word.

But it was a word he could never say.

_I don't love her, not like that._

_ How do you know?_ a traitorous voice whispered inside. _Have you tried?_

_ I am going to be a Jedi_, he told it firmly.

But Ryn was still hurting.

Merach raised herself on one elbow and looked at him. "Skywalker."

Anakin squirmed under his blanket, swiveling to meet her eyes. "Yeah?"

"Can't sleep?"

Anakin squirmed some more. "Just restless." _A Jedi should never be restless._

"Maybe you should go see your girl," Merach suggested. "In that big old bed, all alone ..."

Anakin sighed. "She's not my girl."

Merach studied his face. "She likes you."

_Ouch._ "I know."

"And you care about her."

"She's a friend."

Merach's confusion was disconcerting, mostly because it was so genuine: no judgment, just a lot of sincere confusion. "Nothing else?"

Anakin shook his head. "No."

"But ... why?"

_That's the question. _"Jedi are not allowed to form attachments."

Merach shivered. "Forgive me. That ... seems so cold."

Anakin sighed and lay back, looking up at the carved ceiling. "Sometimes it is."

[]

It was a relief to find Ryn at supper, even if she didn't really look like herself, wrapped in pale gold fabric with her hair caught up - very inexpertly - in combs. At least her presence, if not her appearance, was familiar. The strangeness of Loreth was unnerving in a way Anakin had never felt before - maybe he just missed Obi-Wan, or maybe it was the constant barrage of strong Force presences here. Anakin doubted whether any of the villagers were _not_ Force-sensitive.

Or maybe it was the way they all _stared_ at him.

But Ryn was familiar, sort of. She came into the room on a swell of drum music and halted just inside the doorway, eyes scanning for him. Their eyes met, and she smiled, and some of the tension in Anakin's chest eased.

She made her way to him through a series of short conversations, members of the household welcoming her home. Anakin tried to watch her as a Jedi should: not just his stunning best friend, but a leader among her people, participating in their strange customs.

If Obi-Wan were here, he'd be asking his Padawan to speculate on the significance of the fact that she _touched_ everyone she met: some on the shoulder, a few on the face. The difference had to mean something.

He figured it out when she got to him, because she reached up and gripped his shoulder firmly with her left hand. "Peace be with you, Anakin Skywalker."

Anakin answered her in halting Lorethan: "And also with you."

Ryn flashed him a rare, unstudied smile. "That's good!" She squeezed his shoulder tightly before letting go. "You've been staring at me, you know."

"I was observing greeting customs," Anakin responded loftily. "Obi-Wan will want to know."

The rueful tilt of Ryn's mouth said she was worried about him. But: "What have you learned?"

"Greetings involve much more physical touch than is common on Coruscant," Anakin answered gravely. "Of course, that is not unexpected in very _primitive_ cultures -" He broke off, grinning, as Ryn punched him playfully in the arm. "Touching the face indicates ... a family relationship?

"Or other close bond, yes," Ryn said.

"Whereas touching the shoulder is the default."

"Ung," Ryn answered, her usual wordless expression for _you're wrong but I don't want to say so_. "Expresses solidarity."

"Okay, that." Anakin caught sight of Sithair again, watching them like a bird of prey. "So how are you related to him again?"

"To Sithair?" Ryn asked, surprised. "Oh. His great-grandfather's sister married one of my great-grandmother's brothers."

"I don't ... _what_?" said Anakin, confused. He worked it through again. "So you're really not related to him at all?"

"Well, not by blood," Ryn said. "But the bonds created by marriage are very real here. When Sithair's mother died in the Battle of Khervoran, his Outsider father called upon Kit to foster his son as a matter of family duty. So Kit brought him home, and trained him as a steward. Sithair is the real master of this house now - knows more about running it than Kit or I ever will." She lifted a hand to wave at the young man in question, and Sithair smiled back, tentatively pleased.

"But why does he call you 'Cousin?'" Anakin asked, still puzzled.

"Well, he is, technically speaking," Ryn pointed out. "And then we've always had fun playing up the kinship. I'm not sure why. Children do odd things sometimes."

"Yeah," said Anakin. "Ryn, he likes you."

"Yeah, well ... I like him, too." Ryn folded her arms beneath her breasts and hunched her shoulders a little. "I know what you're sensing. But ... it wasn't always like that. We grew up together. Except ... no, I don't really know how to explain it. And it isn't really my story to tell, anyway." She drew a deep breath. "I have to go do the lady-of-the-house thing for a while. Will you be all right?"

Anakin forced a smile. "Sure."


	19. Chapter 19

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER NINETEEN**

Ryn served drinks at supper, part of her duties as a Lorethan hostess, even though she'd been gone a year. She didn't really mind the task, but in this case she received an unexpected bonus for doing her duty: more than once during the evening she caught Anakin staring, his gaze lingering appreciatively on the curve of her hip or the dip of her neckline.

It was a surprising change, and Ryn wasn't entirely sure what had caused it. Maybe it was the aftermath of their less-than-tender counter on Hallan's ship; maybe it was the intimacy of finding himself in her home. Or maybe his worry for Obi-Wan was making him desperate for any distraction. Ryn was weak enough not to care about his reasons.

She flushed with heat every time she felt his eyes on her, her skin tingling, her breath quickening with urgency. She didn't dare meet his eyes for fear of giving herself away.

So she just made it a point to walk past him as often as possible, hoping desperately for him to make the first move.

Except of course Anakin hadn't changed his mind about the dangers of a sexual encounter just because he liked the way she looked in a clingy skirt. By the time the fire had been banked for the night and Sithair was giving orders for the beds to be laid in the hall, Anakin had still done nothing more productive than _stare_ at her all evening.

_Damn his conscience, anyway,_ she thought, frustrated beyond endurance. _It does more harm than good._

She picked her way over to him amongst the piles of blankets; he looked down at her in the half-light, his face and his signature equally unreadable.

Ryn set one hand lightly against Anakin's chest and looked up into his eyes, licking lips gone dry with nerves. _Come on, just say it._ "I could feel you watching me tonight."

He put one hand on her arm, unbelievably warm and strong and vital. "I'm sorry if I made you uncomfortable."

_Take me now._ "You didn't. I just wasn't sure what you wanted."

The curve of his mouth softened in a barely-there smile. "Sometimes I don't know myself."

_That's reassuring._ "I don't want to ask for more than you're ready to give," Ryn said slowly, lowering her eyes. "But I ... I think you know how I feel. So if ... if you ... get cold ... tonight, you know where to find me." She risked a quick glance at his face. "No questions asked."

She turned to go before he could drag her into another conversation about how all this was wrong. She _knew_ it was wrong, damn it, she just didn't care.

Anakin held her fast anyway, tugging her back to face him. "Ryn, wait."

_Don't say no again. Please don't say no again._

He put two fingers under her chin and tipped her face up so he could look into her eyes. Ryn steeled herself for the worst. But instead of _no_ ...

"Thank you," he said quietly. "That is ... an amazing offer. Probably the best offer anybody could ever hope for. I just ... I just want you to know I _do_ appreciate it. I'm not taking it for granted. Or you." He swallowed. "I know you're extraordinary, Ryn."

_But it's never enough._ Ryn gently freed her arm from his grasp, too tired to cover the same older ground again right now.

"If I don't see you tonight," she said softly, "sleep well."

She left him standing and didn't look back.

[]

_He doesn't go to her that night. To taunt Ryn with promises he cannot fulfill would be beyond cruel. He can't give up the Jedi for her: if he _is_ the Chosen One, he has a duty to stay, and even if he's not, Ryn isn't free, either. They are both of them slaves, as much as the Jedi try to pretend otherwise - at least Loreth makes no pretense about what it has done. _

_ Like slaves, all they can ever have are stolen moments of intimacy. _

_ Like slaves, they would have to run great risks to be together. _

_ And like slaves, they could not share the risks equally._

_ Nearly four years later, his desperate love for Padmé and a misguided belief in destiny will convince Anakin that it won't _be like that_ with her. But at fifteen, for his best friend, he does one truly selfless thing: he spends the night alone. _

_ Evinne notices his discomfort and rolls to face him, curiously alone herself this evening. "You're really not going to go?" she whispers, jerking her head toward the ceiling. "She _wants_ you, Skywalker." _

_ Anakin swallows hard. It's embarrassing to admit it, but ... "I know." _

_ "So then why are you down here?" she demands, plainly incredulous. _

_ Anakin turns away, jaw clenching. "I'm not going to break her heart." _

_ "Too late," Evinne says softly. _

_ Anakin pretends not to hear._


	20. Chapter 20

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

Author's note: The story clearly takes a turn here (thus the short chapter). Feedback is very welcome.

**CHAPTER TWENTY**

Ryn wakes him before dawn, crouching over him with her hand pressed lightly to his shoulder. "Come with me," she whispers. "And be quiet."

Her summons is mysterious, but Anakin feels the tension within her, threatening to snap. But ... this was Ryn, so he rolls out of his blankets and follows her silently out of the main hall, then down a steep path edged in white stone that fades away at the banks of a little spring, clear and dark in the starlight, whose mossy pool spills over into a quiet stream running down into the bracken.

"Here." Ryn kneels on one side of the stream. Even in the starlight, Anakin can see the mud soaking her skirt, but Ryn ignores it. "This place is strong magic - strong with the Force, you would say. Now, in the time-between-times, we have our best chance of reaching Obi-Wan." She waves him to a spot opposite her, on the other side of the stream. "Kneel down and take my hands. I will begin the invocation."

"Invocation?" Anakin asks, alarmed. "Ryn, that's heresy. Obi-Wan wouldn't want me to -"

"Hush," says Ryn sternly. "All you need to do is focus on finding Obi-Wan through your bond. I will commit all the heresies myself. And they are not heresies to me."

"I ... all right." He swallows hard. _I trust her. I do._

Kneeling in the mud, wrapping her cold fingers around his wrists as he reaches back to do the same, Ryn begins to chant.

He can't understand the words; maybe they don't even belong to the same dialect Ryn has been using all this time, and the syllables are drawn out strangely in the rhythm of the chant But he feels their power, feels the Force surge and churn around them, building a whirlpool with Ryn at its center ...

Her sense of urgency tightens, along with her grip on his wrists: _Now_.

Anakin reaches for her and draws on that power, siphoning it off through their shared grip, and the universe spins out into realms unknown.

With this power, he could do anything. Halt the stars in their orbits, shatter the pulse of the planetary core ... he can feel everything living and fucking and dying on this planet and out into space ...

_Obi-Wan!_ Ryn urges him, fiercely focused, and Anakin grasps his end of the training bond and shoots along it, propelled by a wave of power pulsing like a vast heartbeat, the energy that drives the galaxy itself ...

_Obi-Wan! Master!_

"Something's blocking me," he grits, straining against it.

He draws through Ryn again, the Force _strong_ here as never before, even if it is correspondingly less clear. Throws all that power against the barrier like the sea against a cliff. _Master!_

He feels ... a tentative touch. _Anakin?_

_Master! It's me, it's Anakin. We're coming. Where are you?_

_I don't know. Underground, I think. Omega -_

The backlash is powerful enough to break Anakin's connection to the Force and drive him nearly face-down into the stream. He knows Ryn feels it, too, because her chanting falters and she almost loses her grip on him, doubling over with a pained retching sound.

Reeling, Anakin tries to steady her anyway. Gives her a shake to make her open her eyes. "Ryn! Are you with me? What _was_ that?"

He doesn't really expect an answer, so he isn't all that surprised when Ryn shakes her head as he helps her to her feet.

"I am ... not sure," she admits unsteadily. Her voice is raw, and he can feel her trembling in his arms as he lifts her over the stream. "But I fear the worst. Omega must have found someone in Clan Ardel to work sorcery for him. Could you not feel the taint?"

All Anakin can feel at the moment is a blinding headache. Ryn sees the denial in his eyes and breathes out, not quite a sigh. "It was sorcery," she affirms.

_So was this,_ Anakin thinks, but from the way Ryn says the word he knows better than to say it aloud. So instead he says, "You mean the Dark Side?"

"I can't tell you that," Ryn answers, her tone touched with a hint of asperity. "I've never met a Dark Side user. I don't even fully understand how _energy_ can be evil. Or come to think of it, _dark_." She rubs her forehead with the heel of one hand. "Isn't that contrary to the laws of physics?"

Trust Ryn to try and figure all this out _now_. "The Force is a great mystery," Anakin tells her, and Ryn gives him her infamous You're Full of It look.

"We might as well head back to the house," she says. "There's nothing more we can do here."

It's a measure of how tired she is that she leans on him most of the way back.

[]

When daylight comes, they gear for war.


	21. Chapter 21

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-ONE**

They bathed again in the early light, just the two of them in silence as dawn broke beyond the eastern windows and kindled the showers' dark mystery to sparkling prisms.

Ryn kept to herself as they washed and dressed, refusing to meet his eyes. Anakin wasn't sure whether they had somehow inadvertently taken a giant leap backward to put more distance between them, or maybe Ryn was just trying to give him some privacy, but he knew her presence radiated pain.

There really wasn't anything he could say to make it better - how many ways can you tell your best friend you don't love her enough? So Anakin kept his shields up and pretended he hadn't noticed. A person as intensely private as Ryn wouldn't welcome the intrusion.

He thoughts he'd done a pretty good job of hiding his concern until Ryn tugged on her boots and shot him one of her unreadable looks. "Quit staring at me like I'm dying."

Anakin ducked his head, caught.

"_Don't_." There was something so raw in Ryn's voice that it jerked Anakin's head back up to meet her eyes. "Don't make this harder for me."

"Ryn, I know you're hurting -"

"I can't deal with this right now!" Anakin flinched, and Ryn softened her voice a little. "I know you want to fix this, but you can't. And I'm not sure you should try, anyway."

"What? _Ryn_ -"

"You were right," she said thickly, cutting him short. "I'm _not_ ready for love. I don't even know how to live with myself, yet." She took a deep breath and forged ahead. "You did the right thing, last night." Another deep breath, not quite a sob. "I hated it, but you were right. Just ... it's going to _hurt_, and you can't help me, not this time." She looked up and met his eyes, and her own were bright with pain. "You have to do the Jedi thing and let me go. Because I can't do this right now. I can't have you standing around, watching me like I'm dying. I'm going to hurt, and you have to let me. It's the only way." She took his face in both hands and pulled him closer, so that their foreheads rested against each other for a single, aching moment. "I love you," she whispered, their lips almost touching. "So much. But I'm not ready for you. So ... let's just go find Obi-Wan, okay?"

She was shaking, but there was no doubt in her voice, only pain. Anakin closed his eyes and swallowed hard. "Okay."

Ryn drew one more breath and let him go. "Okay," she repeated, more decisively. "Come on. We've got a lot of work to do."

* * *

That morning Obi-Wan caught his first hint of another living being besides Omega in his prison. He woke to the sound of raised voices. He could not catch the words, but one of the voices was clearly Omega's. The other was a deep, rich male voice - reminiscent, in its warm resonance, of Qui-Gon Jinn; but younger than Obi-Wan had ever known his master. By straining with all his senses in this Force-dampened place, he could just make out their feelings: anger and impatience from the newcomer, deep contempt from Omega. They talked for perhaps a quarter of an hour, voices rising and falling like the wind, and then moved on, neither of them satisfied.

_Interesting,_ Obi-Wan decided, and settled in to meditate.

* * *

In a darkened apartment in 500 Republic, a cloaked shadow hovers, illuminated only by his own glowing eyes. The Force stirs, swells, trembles around him: orgasmic shudders of power.

Disturbed by such insistence, the currents of the Force shift to accommodate the shadow's desire to _know_.

_There._ The boy, tall and upright, the very image of life and energy, vital as the Force itself: _I will own him._ The girl, a discordant note in his dark symphony: she lacks the boy's transcendent nature but doggedly follows him anyway, rising above herself.

It's maddening.

The shadow lets out a quietly controlled breath, shifts his focus; he'll tune her instrument soon enough in any case. Now he must learn what the Jedi is doing, and he bends the Force to his will and sees ... nothing.

_That can't be right._

The shadow sinks its immaterial teeth into the Force, demanding subservience. The Force obeys ... and again the eye of his inner mind slides away, deflected as a lightsaber by a parry-stroke.

Something hinders him, and it is not the Jedi.

Cold rage swells the apartment in 500 Republic like a dark tide, but the shadow will not be thwarted.

He turns inward, and feeds upon his own darkness.

* * *

Anakin followed Ryn up the stairs to her room and stood uncertainly just inside the doorway, feeling his own out-of-place-ness in this intensely private space.

It wasn't so much that it was _Ryn_'s - he knew he was invited into her _personal_ space even more than this. It was that the space _wasn't_ Ryn's. She had touched it, left her mark, but this place had been here before she was born to grace it and would still exist when her bright eyes were only a memory.

"What was this room before it was yours?"

Ryn glanced over her shoulder to meet his eyes, hands still busy packing. "It's been empty for generations. The women of the house used it as a place for meditation, and after that it was an observatory of sorts." She reached out and pulled back one of the heavy curtains that covered the huge windows and kept out the keen wind. "Even in the daytime, the view from here is amazing."

Anakin crossed the floor to lean past her and look over the balcony. "Oh."

The sea plunged beneath them, fierce with white foam. He could _feel_ its power from here. Behind, the highlands rose and fell in jaggedly beautiful undulations. Mist rose from hidden glens, white in the morning sun.

"It's beautiful," he breathed, and glanced down to find Ryn's face inches from his own. "I can see why you love this place."

"It was a good home," Ryn answered noncommittally, and turned away.

From the window, Anakin turned and examined the room, taking in the rich tapestries, the collection of strange artifacts that adorned the top of the elaborately-carved chest. The ancient weapons that hung from every solid space along the walls.

"They look like you," he said without thinking.

Ryn twisted to stare at him, uncomprehending. "What?"

Anakin gestured to the selection of knives and swords and what he thought might be javelins that hung on her walls - no vibroblades or electrostaffs here. These things were _old_, maybe older than the Republic. And they practically sang with Ryn, her resonance in the Force. "The weapons," he said. "They were your touch. You brought them to the room."

Ryn tucked an unruly strand of black hair behind her ear and gazed around the room, bewildered. "I ... yes, I did. From the armory. But ... how did you know? Do you think they don't belong?"

"I'm not an interior decorator," Anakin retorted. "But they look like you, and nothing else in here does." _Except the bed_, but he was trying to avoid thinking about that. He let his senses rest on the tapestries, just for a second. "It feels like ... Gunryth."

"Gunryth?" Ryn repeated. "She's never been here. I don't - oh, wait. You're feeling that this is a feminine space. Like Gunryth's room. Like Gunryth herself, in some ways - she is strong in women's magic. This room does feel like that, a little."

Anakin frowned at her. "You know I didn't understand any of that, right? The Force doesn't care about gender."

"It's not the Force, it's the way we feel it," Ryn said, and scowled. "Maybe." She straightened away from whatever she was putting into the duffle bag and pushed her hair back again. "I never finished my training."

Anakin folded his arms to keep from touching anything - he felt ungainly up here, as though he took up too much space, an invader by mistake. "You need training to be a woman?"

"You think we're born knowing the cure for menstrual cramps, or how to give head?" Ryn shook her head at him, baffled by his male ignorance. "But I probably know more about being a man in any case."

Anakin choked. "_What?_"

"You know. Shaving and scratching and all that." Ryn tossed him a grin as she crossed to the chest and lifted away the stone and crystals that lay spread on its bright silk covering. "But I don't know if Lorethan men have any special prayers. The Jedi ... tend to erase the differences between genders."

"Or maybe we just don't try and make new ones," Anakin retorted, always a little defensive where Ryn and the Jedi were concerned.

But Ryn just gave him a little nod, her smile turning wry. "Probably both." She pulled out a fist-sized packet, closely wrapped in brilliant orange silk, and frowned at it. "Anyway, I was never able to consecrate this room with menstrual blood myself. The power probably hasn't been renewed since before I was born."

"Blood?" Anakin repeated uneasily, eying the walls as though they might start oozing at any moment.

"Yes," Ryn answered, oblivious. "But I have never gotten my period up here. Not even this house, actually. By the time I started bleeding, I hadn't been home much in years. And I am ... highly irregular."

_I didn't need to know that._ Anakin tried not to flinch. "Are you ... okay?"

"Yeah." Ryn sighed. "It's not dangerous. Just ... frustrating. A physical reminder of my general inadequacies as a woman."

"You're not inadequate."

Ryn shot him a look. "You know I am. You just don't care." She shrugged. "Priorities."

"Let me put it this way." Ryn took out a small green pouch and peered inside. "If I were any good as a woman, you couldn't stand here in my bedroom and _talk_ to me about it."

"Huh?" said Anakin, still trying to figure out what Ryn thought made a woman. "Why .. oh." He followed her eyes to the bed, draped invitingly in embroidered silks. The curtains that hung from its tall posts were tied back and fluttering in the morning breeze, revealing the turned-back sheets and the little dent where Ryn must have slept last night.

"_Exactly,_" Ryn said grimly, and went to place the retrieved items in her duffle. "There's a reason why I spent the night alone."

"I was using Jedi restraint." Ryn snorted at this. "Don't laugh," he said. "I mean it." he hugged one of the tall bed supports, resting his forehead against the ancient silk-draped wood. "Doing the right thing isn't always easy."

"No; I know it isn't," Ryn allowed. She reached overhead and pulled down a pair of knives for her belt. "Are you going to try and tell me you couldn't find a single soul to comfort you last night?"

"I didn't _look_," Anakin said. "I - oh. You're teasing me, aren't you?"

"Not very well, apparently," Ryn answered. "But: yes."

"'S all right," Anakin conceded. "Anyway: no, I didn't find anybody last night." He sat down on the edge of the bed to watch her finish packing, then instantly regretted it when the Force tried to drown him in Ryn's past misery. He flinched and tightened his shields against the unwanted realization that Ryn hadn't slept at all last night: she'd sat _right there_, crying, and watched the doorway he wouldn't come through, waiting ...

"Anakin? What's wrong?"

He flinched again in guilt; he hadn't been meant to see any of that. "Nothing," he said, a little unsteadily. "I just ... keep trying to imagine Tiny Ryn up here, playing with dolls, or - what?"

Ryn stifled her unexpected mirth with a last giggle. "'Tiny Ryn?'"

"Well, you know. _You_, but smaller."

"And playing with dolls?"

"Or whatever you did at that age."

Ryn shook out a bright embroidered shawl and folded it down for the pack. "Not playing with dolls, that's for sure," she mused. "But if you want to see where I spent most of my free time as a child, that's not hard. We can go there after the armory."

"The armory?" Anakin repeated, and Ryn hefted her duffle with smile.

"Can't go to war without weapons."


	22. Chapter 22

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-TWO**

Rath Uinen's weapons-hoard was cached under the large beehive-shaped stone structure that dominated the fort. Ryn led the way down a short flight of steps and out into a vaulted area about the size of the building above, hollowed out of the stony ground. She picked up a torch from one of the sconces on the wall and lit it with a striker from her utility belt, not something a Jedi would have carried.

"Watch your step," she murmured as they moved forward into the circle of light it afforded. "Sometimes the floor gets slick."

If the floor was getting slick, it was probably from water, which couldn't possibly be good for all these metal weapons. But Ryn had to know what already, so Anakin kept his mouth shut and followed her through the murk.

"How old are these?" he whispered, staring around at walls hung with forged weapons so antiquated they didn't even have power cells.

"Maybe not as old as you think," Ryn answered, advancing on a rack of swords. "We still make weapons this way, though now we carry lightsabers, too." She handed him the torch and drew a long blade, its edge flashing. "The blades are treated to be resistant to energy weapons. They are strengthened by connection to their wielder, so with regular use they last ver well." She stepped back and sighted down the blade of her sword. "And they aren't as unwieldy as a lightsaber." She dropped to a fighting stance and whipped the blade through the air, sleek graceful arcs of a form Anakin recognized as vaguely similar to her usual fighting style.

Watching her now, seeing the blade become a part of her body ... "You learned on one of these," he said aloud. "Instead of a lightsaber."

Ryn grinned and lowered the sword. "Is it that obvious?"

"Your fighting style suits this better."

Ryn ran her hand lovingly down the flat of the blade. "This one was made for me - this and its twin, yonder." She nodded at its companion, still in the rack. "I fight with two." She reached for the mate and held it to the light, her face avid as Anakin had never seen it. "The sword is my weapon."

"I'll bet you're good," Anakin offered.

Ryn's eyes gleamed with unabashed pride in the torchlight. "Very good." She spun the twin swords and hooked them to her belt. "Only thing I won more often than not, in training."

"How often did you win?" Anakin asked her.

Ryn ginned wider. "Often enough." She clapped him on the shoulder. "Choose your weapon."

"I have a lightsaber -"

"And if Ardel has a black-shield it won't do you a bit of good. Pick something that doesn't run on batteries."

Anakin glanced at her, exasperated. "A lightsaber can cut through any of these weapons any -"

"A lightsaber won't cut through anything if you can't turn it on," Ryn said flatly. "And when I said these things were resistant to energy, I wasn't just having fun. I've deflected balster bolts with these. Stopped lightsabers, too, at least in the practice yard."

"_How?_" Anakin demanded. "They don't carry a charge -"

"They don't until you pick them up," Ryn said. "The metal will carry a charge from your body, and channel the Force if you know how to direct it, which of course I don't. I doubt they'd last forever against a lightsaber's power cell, but then again ..." She shrugged. "If you're good, you don't need forever."

"Getting cocky, aren't you?" Anakin said.

But Ryn just flashed him another grin. "I never said _I_ was that good. But choose your weapon and I'll show you where I spent my free time growing up."

"Oh, so now there are conditions?" Anakin teased, and Ryn laughed.

"Less talking, more choosing," she admonished him. "Here. I'll hold the torch."

Anakin didn't really know anything about choosing weapons, other than how to use whatever was handy, as any Jedi would. In this case, too much was handy, and he searched the racks with a sense of unreality heightened by the strange lighting and the echoes of this undergrounds space.

Ryn saw his uncertainty and shifted her torch for a better look. "The thing to remember is that these weapons have _weight_, rather than _power_. It's not like trying to control a lightsaber. Anything you choose, you're going to be brandishing in the air for a while." She held the torch a little higher to shed light on another rack. "You're going to be weaker, physically, than almost any Lorethan your size. But with the Force, you're also faster. So my best advice is to pick something fairly light and make use of that speed."

Anakin glanced at the slender blade she wore at either hip. "That's _your_ strategy."

"Doesn't mean it won't work for you."

"I'm taller. I can use something with more reach."

"You're taller than me," Ryn said. "But they call me _Shorty_ for a reason. Reach won't help you here. But you could probably carry something heavier than my _murnai_." She pointed. "The longsword there, two spaces from the top. That fits your fighting style."

Anakin looked at her curiously. "You've given this some thought."

For one awful second Ryn's face was wracked by some wild grief so profound it wrenched her from within. "Do you think I haven't thought about it?" she whispered, stilling her features again. "About what will happen if my mission fails, and I'm asked to kill you?"

Anakin stared at her. "You're my best friend."

A tear leaked from the corner of Ryn's eye and ran silently down her cheek. "I know."

"But ..." But in the end, there weren't any words for that kind of pain. Fighting Ryn would be like fighting Obi-Wan: unimaginable. "That's not going to happen," Anakin said firmly. "We won't _let_ it happen." He reached out and touched her cheek, brushing away the tear with his thumb. "We just have to make sure your mission does not fail."

Ryn put her hand over his and pressed a kiss to his palm before releasing it. "Don't mind me," she said shakily. "I'm all over the place this morning."

"You're under a lot of stress," Anakin said. "You've got a right to cry if you feel like it."

"We don't have time for tears," Ryn answered. "Come on, choose your weapon. I've got something to show you."


	23. Chapter 23

Disclaimer: I do not own Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

Author's note:

1)You'll notice (or maybe you won't) a mention of Stewjon and its weaponry, the background for both of which belong to Estora (see Wookieepedia for more details). As we were reading each others' fic, we discovered that the two of us had independently created oddly similar swordmaking traditions for our respective planets, and, well ... cross-verse meta backstory was born. So in my 'verse, Obi-Wan is aware of Stewjon and its weapons, which are similar but not identical to the Lorethan ones with which he is not yet familiar. So the moral of this story is: you should all go read Estora's _Jedi Master, Galactic Tyrant_ fic, and also everything else she writes. And this chapter, obviously, is dedicated to Estora, with many thanks for letting me mention Stewjon's filled-in history and add a little breadth to Obi-Wan's knowledge.

2) The line "I am what I am. Someone has to be," is from Ridley Scott's 2005 film, _Kingdom of Heaven_, where it is uttered by a supporting villain. I found the resonance too striking, and the line too appropriate, not to let Ryn have it here. Consider the implications ...

**CHAPTER TWENTY-THREE**

_In the dream, Ryn stands in a practice ring walled with white stone and holds a sword of dark metal at arm's length. Wind whips black hair across a rare, unrestrained smile. She beckons, and ... _

Shift.

_It's Anakin, rushing her with a long straight sword, something like the poison-tipped blades they use on Stewjon - and what is he doing with such a weapon? has he lost his lightsaber again?. He sweeps it past Ryn's face, testing her guard, and ..._

Shift.

_ Ryn flicks her sword, and Anakin goes flying. He gets up, half-angry, half-laughing ..._

Shift.

_ It must be later,because Anakin has taken his shirt off and they are both covered in sweat. Anakin rushes her again ..._

Shift.

_ They're mounted, on the backs of some eight-legged steeds with proudly arching necks. Ryn sits her saddles like she was born to it, and maybe she was; if they're on Loreth, as Omega says, she must have been doing this for years. Anakin, predictably, looks a little uncomfortable on the back of a live animal with a will of its own. He leans a little to speak to Ryn, and his Padawan beads flash in the sunlight ..._

Obi-Wan sits up, drenched in sweat and breathing hard. _Omega was telling the truth; they're on Loreth._ But he can't forget Anakin's presence in his mind, desperate: _I'm coming, Master._

Coming: but how fast?

Alone in his cell, Obi-Wan closes his eyes again and reaches for the Force.

* * *

Ryn led him out to the edge of a wide cleared space, walled with rough white stone, and flung her arms wide, turning in a circle. "Well," she announced, grinning, "this is it."

Anakin looked around, taking it in. They weren't the only occupants; several pairs of Lorethans, stripped down to their leggings - or, in the case of the women, leggings and bandeaux - went at each other in tight knots, swords flying this way and that. "It's a training yard?" he asked Ryn, and she nodded.

"I spent most of my free time here, growing up," she said, toeing a rough spot in the ground. "At first I just sat on the wall and watched the warriors, and then when I was old enough, I started practicing. I trained pretty hard."

Ryn's _pretty hard_ was everybody else's _like a demon_, probably. "You must have been amazing."

One corner of her mouth lifted a little. "I don't know about amazing," she conceded. "But I made out all right." She kicked him lightly on the ankle. "And now it's your turn. Get ready for your crash course in Lorethan swordplay, Skywalker."

* * *

Just before midday, they geared up and headed for the rendezvous point.

Sithair was incensed at being left behind. "I could help you," he said to Ryn as she saddled her sleipnir. "I'm good with a sword. I could -"

"Sithair." Ryn's tone brought him to a reluctant halt. "You're not that good with a sword. And you _are_ helping me. I need you here, keeping my people safe."

"Anybody could mind the house -"

"Not like you can." She cinched the saddle in place and turned to set her hands on his shoulders. "I know I can trust you, Sithair. I need you here, taking care of the things I can't."

Sithair laid his hands over hers, meeting her eyes. "I want to take care of you."

Ryn heard the subtle emphasis on the final word with an inward flinch. So much for leaving their forbidden intimacy unspoken. But ...

"That is not our path," Ryn told him firmly. "I am _athelan_. I don't get someone to take care of me." She let her gaze sharpen into reproach. "And you are not a warrior, Sithair."

"I could be," he whispered, and Ryn shook her head.

"I would not love you nearly as much."

"Areth'ryn ..."

"Ri-Domna," Ryn said. "For in this I am your leader, and you must obey me. I am sorry, Sithair."

Her childhood friend hung his head miserably. "Me, too."

"I know." Ryn turned and vaulted into the saddle. "Be well, old friend."

She didn't dare look back.

* * *

They reached the meeting-place in the glen of the white stones just after moonrise and found it spread before them in eerie beauty.

"This place is sacred for us," Ryn told Anakin, leading her sleipnir to join those already tied among the trees. "The devotion goes back to times before Loron came to our planet. You should be honored - you are the first Outsider to have seen it."

"And Hallan," Anakin reminded her, and Ryn shook her head.

"Hallan is not an Outsider any more. He was sworn to Clan Ar-Dain some years ago. Did he tell you his story?"

Anakin shifted guiltily. "We haven't talked much."

_Meaning you've been evading the poor man._ "He married a Lorethan woman, maybe about half a dozen years ago. She has recently taken a lover. Hallan is ... upset."

Anakin stared. "I don't blame him! That's just ... cruel. He moved here for her?"

"Sounds that way."

"And she _cheated_ on him? That's awful!"

"It's more complicated than you might think," Ryn cautioned him. "Lorethans get married for lots of reasons. Sometimes maintaining a sexually exclusive relationship is low on the list."

"Are you saying it's all fine?"

"I don't know," Ryn answered. "I wasn't there. I didn't hear their vows."

"So?"

"So I have no way of knowing whether she promised him fidelity or not. Hallan claims not to remember the ceremony himself."

"After what happened with your own parents, don't tell me you are seriously defending this insanity!"

Ryn glared at him as she removed her saddlebags. "I'll thank you not to call my culture insanity," she retorted sharply. "And I should think my parents' relationship demonstrated conclusively the dangers of jealousy."

"The dangers of - you sound like a Jedi!"

"No, I don't." Ryn forestalled Anakin's protest with a raised hand. "The Jedi would say that _attachment_ is the danger, and seek to discourage one from loving a specific being. I am saying that _jealousy_ is wrong, trying to claim another being for yourself." She shook her head. "You of all people should know that's just another word for slavery."

Anakin's face went white. "Don't you dare speak to me of slavery," he spat. "Or tell me that if Hallan just let go of his wife, everything would be fine!"

Ryn shot her friend an exasperated look. "I _didn't_ say that!"

"You didn't have to!"

"Apparently I don't have to say anything at all," Ryn answered tartly, "since you're putting the words in my mouth anyway."

"I am not! I just can't believe you're taking her side."

Ryn stared at him. "I can't be on anyone's side - I barely know Hallan, and I've never even met his wife! I'm just saying we don't know the whole story." She huffed a breath in frustration. "What's got into you, anyway?"

"Nothing! I just -" Anakin broke off and groaned, pressing the heels of his hands to his temples. "Force, I don't know. I'm sorry."

"Hey," said Ryn, gentling her tone. She reached out and gripped his shoulder. "It's going to be okay. You hear me?"

Anakin's eyes were raw with pain when he looked at her. "How do you know?"

"Because we won't quit until it is," Ryn answered, with considerably more confidence than she felt. "Besides, don't the Jedi teach that your focus determines your reality? So focus."

Anakin gave her a half-hearted smile. "You're incredibly bossy, you know."

"I am what I am," Ryn said. "Someone has to be."

It wasn't much of an answer, but Anakin squared his shoulders and nodded at her anyway. "I'll ... be all right. Thanks."

"Hang in there," Ryn told him. "Want me to send someone to take care of your sleipnir?"

Anakin sighed. "No. It'll give me something to do."

"Okay." She let him go with one last squeeze. "Come find me if you need anything."


	24. Chapter 24

Disclaimer: I am not George Lucas, nor am I making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

Author's note: Obi-Wan meets another of his captors. Elsewhere, a warlord is born ...

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FOUR**

The abrupt change when the ambient lighting shut off woke Obi-Wan sharply.

He sat up, looking around the room, even though he couldn't see anything any more. It penetrated slowly that he wasn't alone. In spite of his diminished ability to sense the Force, he could tell that there was at least one being nearby.

_Two._ He could hear their breathing, feel the subtle shifts in the room's stale air that not even the stealthiest humanoid would be able to hide. "Who's there?"

"Sssshhhh, foolish boy. Speak when you are spoken to, yes?"

Something about that accent ... "Who are you?" Obi-Wan asked, trying to sound politely inquisitive instead of desperately frightened.

"Silence, young Jedi." It was a female voice, lower than was common among humans, and rich with power. "This one is strong," she reported. "Strong, but he has no roots. We can break him."

That didn't sound encouraging.

"Do it," a second voice said, but it was too obviously distorted by a vocabulator to tell Obi-Wan much about its owner. _Omega?_ "And hurry up."

The first voice snorted softly. "Can't rush magic."

* * *

The glen of the white stones, Anakin quickly discovered, was appropriately named. Large white stones rose in the middle of the glen in a wide circle. In the center was another stone: not a tall oblong like the others but almost circular and lying on its side. Ancient hands had made some attempt to work the stone, smoothing it and flattening the top, but the designs they had carved into its sides were so worn Anakin could hardly make them out in the shifting torchlight.

Ryn saw him looking and touched his arm. "Copulating couples," she explained, tracing one pair of figures with the tip of her finger. "A different place might have been better for what we want to do, but this was close. And maybe the images of life will prove a good omen." She drew her hand away and sighed thoughtfully. "It's a shame we have no virgins to sacrifice."

"_What?_" Anakin choked. This couldn't be right. This was _Ryn._ He _knew_ her. She'd never ...

"Losing one's virginity is a powerful thing," Ryn said. "And for a woman it comes with blood." She gave the stone - _altar_ - a last, lingering touch. "But I suppose I'm the only female virgin present, and I can't really volunteer for this. Seeing me spreadeagled all over the stone is unlikely to inspire the confidence of our warriors."

Anakin shook his head to clear it. "So when you say 'sacrifice a virgin,' you mean ..."

"Getting someone to have sex for the first time on the altar," Ryn confirmed. "It's harder than it sounds. You have to find a girl who has never had sex before is willing to let her first time be public in a good cause, and then she has to find some guy she trusts enough to become intimate with and who is also willing to perform for a crowd. That's the hardest part; a lot of men don't like an audience, I guess."

"That ..." Anakin tasted bile. "Ryn, that's barbaric."

Ryn blinked at him. "Why?"

"Because - because you can't ask beings to throw their intimate lives out the window for your convenience!"

"It is hardly convenient," Ryn said, and there was a sharp edge in her voice that said he'd offended her. "But it concentrates the power of a place. And if the participants are willing, I don't see why it's wrong. It's better than getting married, and people do that all the time."

Anakin wanted to grab her and shake her, but that probably wasn't a very Jedi response. "How?" he demanded, trying to impose some calm on his cracking voice. "How is ... _that_ ... better than getting married?"

Ryn gave him a sad look, almost pitying. "At least for this, a girl gets to choose her partner."

Anger vanished like a pricked soap bubble, leaving a stinging sadness in its place. "Ryn," he said feelingly. "I'm so sorry."

"For what?"

_For your whole unhappy life._ "Sorry that you live on a world where sacrificing your virginity on a block of stone, in public, is the best you could hope for," he answered instead - not that it sounded much better. "Ryn, it's not like this everywhere."

"I know," Ryn said unexpectedly. "It's not like that for everyone here. But _athelan _are born to sacrifice." She spread her arms helplessly. "This is what I am."

"Don't be," Anakin told her gruffly. "You can do better."

* * *

With the shortage in available blood, Ryn rounded up three men willing to spill their seed on the stone and let them go to it. (She didn't stick around to find out how they achieved their results; she was reasonably certain she didn't want to know.) At midnight, she took her place on the stone, standing in the torchlight with her boot-heels slicked by the slow-drying come, and faced her people.

"Stevan Ardel has joined forces with a galactic criminal known as Granta Omega," she reported evenly. "Granta Omega has attempted the destruction of the Dome that sustains our people on Fjornel, and it was only through the actions of this man, Jedi Padawan Anakin Skywalker, that he failed." Anakin got a cheer for that. "In protecting Granta Omega, Ardel's men have fired on his own sister, Aesin'Evinne -" Evinne waved and got a cheer as well " - and taken captive Skywalker's master, Jedi Knight Obi-Wan Kenobi, who with the blessing of Sarta Ar-Dain Ri-Domna sought to detain Granta Omega for crimes committed against the Republic and against the Jedi our allies, whom I am sworn to serve." Ryn drew a deep breath over the cries of outrage. "In order to destroy the evil among us, restore the safety of our people, and honor our peace with the Jedi, Clan Orun will take Stevan Ardel's stronghold of Rath Ar-Deilan, remove him from his position of power, and deliver Clan Ardel into the keeping of his sister Aesin'Evinne, a noblewoman loyal to our High King and worthy of the name." Another breath. "It will be a hard fight, but we have to win it. It falls to us to save the Jedi, protect the people, and do the will of our king." She drew her sword and turned it back and forth so that the torchlight glinted on its blade. "We will ride forth, take Rath Ar-Deilan, and hunt down Granta Omega, wherever he hides. It begins tonight." She threw her sword in the air and caught it as it flashed white fire from the stars above. "Ride forth as lords of war!" The cry swelled from the crowd in answer and broke over her like a wave. "_Ride forth!_"The war cry swelled and broke again. Ryn raised her sword one more time, reached into the power of the white stones, and screamed the last word: "_RIDE!_"

She leapt off the stone onto the back of her brother's war-steed and led the way.


	25. Chapter 25

Disclaimer: I am not George Lucas, nor do I own Star Wars. This work of fan fiction is shared purely for entertainment purposes, and no profit is being made from it.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-FIVE**

The dream is back, but the scene has changed; now Evinne stands at the prow of a ship - an actual, water-borne, wind-driven ship - with the spray in her face. She shouts a a command and a dozen Lorethans in war-gear leap to obey. And behind her ...

Anakin holds his balance with one hand on the rigging, and he's wearing that strange sword from the last vision.

_Anakin, what are you doing?_

This time, the ream shatters with an almost audible pop, leaving Obi-Wan blinking at his surroundings in confusion.

"Master Jedi," the protocol droid says, "I must apologize for waking you, but I am afraid your reconditioning is scheduled to begin."

_That means torture._ He's been expecting it for days; it's almost a relief to know the weight is over as he drags himself to his feet. _Anakin, hurry._

* * *

They hired passage, a day's ride to the South, on three ships and made the crossing in a day and a half, with favoring winds. Ryn was grateful for that, but still uneasy, so as soon as they had reached the shore she made them mount up and ride again. Here the coastline of the North Continent resembled the rough mountains of her own home, an they rode through a land of heathered crags and hidden glens. ON the fourth day the land began to gentle: there were more trees on the slopes, replacing heather, and the glens became wider and less rocky.

"How many days?" she asked Evinne, dismounting at the ford of a little river to let her sleipnir drink.

Evinne dragged a hand over her wind-burned face. "Hard to say for sure. We could reach the down country in maybe three, if we rode straight. But we'll have to swing south to avoid the Gray Forest."

Ryn followed her gaze, squinting away to the East; but the folds of the land hid whatever troubled Evinne from view.

"I don't think we can afford to avoid it," Ryn said. "My heart tells me our time is short."

"Then all the more need to avoid it," Evinne retorted. "That forest is wild and pathless, and full of dark things. A shadow lies on it." She shook he head. "Those who go in do not come out."

Ryn frowned, trying to picture in her mind the maps she had studied. "If we vary our course to the South," she said slowly, "we will have to ride through peopled lands almost to Stevan's door. Whereas if we cut straight through the forest ... how far will we be from Rath Ar-Deilan?"

"Maybe a day, and the land is empty," Evinne answered. "I see what you are thinking. But it will not work. Only a witch could find a path through that murk."

"A witch," Ryn said consideringly, "or a Jedi."

"Wh - _Anakin_?" Evinne said, beyond dubious. "He's a Padawan-learner! Has he ever attempted anything like this before?"

"I don't think so," Ryn said. "But he has made a lightsaber, so he must have gotten through the caves of Ilum all right. And we need both speed and surprise, badly."

"Neither will help us if we do not reach the other side!"

"That is why we must not fail." She swung herself into the saddle. "We will speak with Skywalker tonight. Let him decide."

"That boy is reckless!"

"I am his warlord and not his wet-nurse." Ryn kneed her sleipnir into the ford. "This is his errand, in the end."

Evinne snarled soundlessly, but leapt to the saddle again as well. "Hyah!"

* * *

Obi-Wan woke - again in darkness; when and why his keepers chose to activate the lights remained a mystery - to the sound of a soft crooning.

"There, my young Jedi," murmured an unfamiliar voice. "You have had a hard night, yes? Rough treatment."

"_Is_ it night?" Obi-Wan wanted to know.

Soft, rustling laughter. "Always night down here."

"So we _are_ underground."

"Hmmm, yes, in the deep womb of the world, we are." The speaker tugged his lace free and reached in to cup his groin. "You may find you like it here."

Obi-Wan grabbed for her wrist - at least, he _thought_ the speaker was female - and tried to remove her hand, but she resisted him without effort. "Hush, young Jedi," she murmured, expert fingers working to awaken his long-neglected sex. "There is no need for modesty, down here in the dark, hm?" She wrapped a hand around his hardening length and began to pump. "Let yourself _feel_, yes ... good, very good." He heard the short, soft sound of spitting and felt his member suddenly lubricated. He should be disgusted, but it _did_ feel good.

_Luminous beings are we ..._

"This is the Jedi fantasy, yes?" she asked him, rubbing her thumb over his swollen head. "Care of the body's needs without fear of emotional involvement?" She stroked him again, harder, and laughed: a somehow chilling sound that made Obi-Wan's skin crawl. "Oh yes. The ultimate Jedi treat."

It took him an embarrassingly short time to finish.

* * *

"Anakin."

Anakin turned his back on the couple pleasuring each other next to him and focused on Ryn, who dropped to a squat beside him. "Yes?"

"Evinne and I would speak with you on a question of some importance."

The formality of her tone didn't bode well, but Anakin nodded. "Lead on."

Ryn flowed upright again with the kind of agility that Anakin strongly suspected would bring her to his dreams again tonight. "This way."

_You could have been sleeping with her, you dope. You chose not to. Don't go complaining about it now._

He watched the sway of her hips all the way to Evinne's tent - the only actual tent in the whole camp.

"Skywalker," Evinne greeted him, crouching huddled in a cloak beside a pile of fire-warmed rocks. "Do you find the night too cold?"

Unsure whether this were a come-on or not, Anakin shot a sideways glance at Ryn for help, but her still features offered no hint of how he should proceed. "Uhm," he said cautiously. "No, I'm fine."

"Tea?"

"No, thank you."

Evinne eased back a little. "Then sit. Has Areth'ryn spoken to you of our dilemma?"

It was almost never a good sign when they used Ryn's whole name. "No," he said slowly, still wary. "Why?"

Evinne waited until he and Ryn had seated themselves on blankets before answering. "Your warlord there wishes to take a shortcut through what we call the Gray Forest," she explained. "I believe this is a bad idea. She insists that _you_ must decide." The golden-haired Lorethan spread her hands. "And here we all are."

"It sounds like I'm missing some information," Anakin suggested.

Ryn leaned forward. "As I understand it, we can cut off nearly four days of travel time and avoid inhabited areas by cutting straight through the forest," she said. "Evinne maintains that it is impossible to find a path through to the other side. I think you can do it."

Anakin frowned. "I don't know anything about forests."

"But you do know the Force," Ryn said. "It can lead you."

"You hope," Evinne corrected.

Ryn glanced at her coolly, unperturbed. "We all live by hope, Ardel."

Anakin took a deep breath. "The Force does guide a Jedi," he admitted. "But ... I'm not sure it is quite in the way you think. And I need something to focus on, something on the other side."

"That's Rath Ar-Deilan," Ryn said. "Or Obi-Wan, eventually, but we have to do this first."

"Right." Anakin heaved a breath. "Okay. I'll try."

"_Try?_" Evinne said, and Ryn silenced her with a wave of her hand, so in charge.

"You have to be sure," she warned Anakin. "In this case, Master Yoda would be right: Do or do not. There is no try."

_She's right, stang it._ Anakin closed his eyes and sank into the Force, waiting to feel the tug of its current, guiding him along ...

... and opened his eyes again. "I can do it."

"Good," Ryn said. She sounded relieved. "We will reach the forest before sundown tomorrow, so you should rest tonight, as much as you can. Come find me if you need anything." She said that every time they parted now; evidently she felt that he needed a great deal of reassurance here.

_Yeah, well ... maybe I do._


	26. Chapter 26

Disclaimer: _Star Wars_ and all associated characters are the property of George Lucas. This is purely a work of fan fiction, shared for entertainment purposes only, and no profit is being made from it.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SIX**

The vision shows him a forest, darker and thicker than any he has yet seen. The trees are ancient, gnarled, and strangely expressive; they seem to move in ways that show more than the wind. Anakin picks his way among their shifting shapes, at the head of what seems to be a small army of Lorethans. Ryn follows doggedly just behind him, sword drawn. Her green eyes are bright and sharp amid the shadows.

_Shift._

They are at a camp in the same forest; Obi-Wan can't tell which scene comes first, or whether it is the future or the past he's seeing now. But the camp is busier than it should be, disrupted, and ...

_Shift._

Anakin and Ryn stand together at the center of camp, fighting. Their attackers are blurs of motion, unstable, and it sinks in slowly that they are fighting shapeshifters of some kind.

_Anakin, be careful ..._

[]

"Evinne!" Ryn ducked under the blinding arc of Anakin's lightsaber and stabbed upward, taking the second creature in the gut. "_Evinne_!"

"'M all right!" Evinne shouted, staggering to her feet. "Only claws." She had a tear rent down the front of her shirt, and an ugly red scratch down one bare arm.

"They can't infect you by biting anyway!" Makesh snapped. "That's just superstition."

Ryn grunted as she kicked off another of the shifters. "Let's not take any chances!"

Across the camp, she heard a scream: another warrior down, not yet dying.

She flashed her blades again, crossing them at the neck of an oncoming attackers, only to find it shifting as she flashed, so that her cross-strokes missed the throat and only grazed the shoulder instead. She hissed in frustration and stabbed once, twice, three times in quick succession. The third time hit a vital organ, finally, and Ryn got sprayed in the face with gore for her trouble as she dragged her sword free.

Funny, how songs spent so many verses on the glory and terror of battle, but almost never mentioned how _gross_ it could be.

"How long ... until daylight?" someone panted, and Evinne groaned in in answer, already fighting again.

"May not matter ... in here," she gritted, and Ryn glanced her way in time to see her run a shifter through with a fallen branch, making use of whatever was handy. "Too ... dark ... with all the trees."

"So we're doomed?" Hallan's voice demanded querulously, and Ryn whipped sideways to cut the legs from under Anakin's latest attacker.

"Not yet!" she yelled, ducking back into place in time to block another leaping figure iwth her blades. The sheer weight of the creature almost bore her down; she could feel Anakin pushing back against her, keeping her upright. Under her breath, she muttered, "But we're getting close."

Anakin Force-pushed a crowd of half-animal monsters aside, gaining them some space. "You got any ideas?" he asked Ryn, shifting to take the head off another snarling beast.

"Not so much," Ryn admitted. "I've never fought these things before."

"But they are _real_, right?" Anakin asked. "Not like the cave visions on Ilum?"

"I've never been to Ilum," Ryn reminded him. "But yeah, they're real."

"I'm not getting any Force signatures. Just a _lot_ of energy."

"That's because they - oof! - have no wills of their own." Ryn broke the oncoming charge with a well-placed kick; she felt the impact jar through her bones even as she flashed her swords in twin killing arcs. "They answer to the will of the Unnamed."

"The Unnamed?" Anakin repeated. "That's not very helpful, is it?"

Ryn didn't answer right away; she was busy scything a path through to Makesh, who was struggling to hold his little knot together.

The addition of a Jedi and a swordfighter turned the tide, and then Ryn panted, "Names have power, Anakin. They _mean_ something. Why giver her that?"

"Because refusing to speak of something doesn't make it go away?" Anakin suggested.

Ryn grimaced. _That's not how things work here._ But she didn't have time to talk about it, because Merach was going down ...

Anakin saw it, too, and tightened one hand in a Force-choke that brought the slavering beat to its knees. Merach whipped off its head with one clean stroke, spun to look for more, and froze as she realized that there weren't any.

Ryn scowled, scanning the camp with her swords still drawn. "There were more," she said tightly, turning a slow circle. "Where did they go?"

"Don't tell me you're complaining," Lihamh warned. His leather jerkin was shredded down to the skin and sticky with blood. "Be glad we fought them off."

"We didn't," Evinne countered grimly, flinging dark ooze from one hand with a moue of distaste. "What fight were you in, anyway?"

"Ardel Ri-Domna is right," another voice said. "They had us beaten. Why did they run?"

No one had an answer for that.

Ryn kicked a body aside, already decomposing into reeking gelatinous sludge. _Ew._ "Whatever they're doing, we won't wait here to find out," she determined. "Gear up; we've moving out."

They all stared at her, but only Makesh spoke up. "Now?" he demanded, incredulous. "In the dark?"

"It won't be much lighter in here by day," Ryn pointed out. "We pile our dead and set fire to them, then we move."

"Burn them?" someone said. "But who will watch the fire?"

"The forest will take care of those who have died here," Ryn answered shortly. "They would not have us pay for their funerals with our lives."

So they piled the dead - nineteen young men and women in all, the sixth part of their force - and set fire to them, and chanted a farewell over their bodies. Anakin could not sing, for he did not know the words; but he stood silent, with his head bowed, and Ryn wondered if that were a Jedi custom, or one from Tatooine.

Before they left, Ryn set her hand to the trunk of one of the older trees and set her will on it, reaching through its hoary roots to urge the forest to do its work quickly and reclaim the fallen.

They gathered the sleipnir and moved out.


	27. Chapter 27

Disclaimer: Star Wars and all associated characters are the property of George Lucas. This story is a piece of fan fiction, and is shared purely for entertainment purposes. No profit is being made from it.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-SEVEN**

They slipped between the trees in double file, Anakin leading the way with Ryn at his side and Evinne taking rearguard with Makesh. Though only Evinne and Ryn had been Rangers, still the Lorethans were woodwise, raised in the wild country and making hardly a whisper of noise as they moved through the wood.

It was dark, but they dared not carry torches. "Let the enemy be drawn to the fire we leavebehind us, and not to the one that goes before," Evinne had said; so they walked close together, sleipniri and humanoids crowded close in double file. Only when the way was excruciatingly difficult did he ignite his lightsaber to see, and then Ryn hissed in fear beside him, like a frightened animal.

"You really think those ... creatures ... will come back?" he asked her, the third time it happened.

Ryn shook her head fiercely - not in denial, but in doubt. "I do not know," she answered under her breath, "but I fear the worst. Those creatures were Fomhoir. They are not supposed to come this far south." She glanced away into the shadows. "Or to the surface at all."

That sounded ... ominous.

Anakin frowned at her, trying to read her features in the eerie glow of his lightsaber. "What do you mean?" he asked slowly.

Ryn's mouth tightened. "We are being hunted."

Anakin felt his own mouth go dry. "By those ... things?"

Ryn shook her head again, glancing up through the tangled limbs of ancient trees to catch a glimpse of the night sky. "By something far worse - the Power which drives them." She pointed right, across his body. "Bear South. That way."

Anakin squinted off in the direction she was pointing, as though he could _see_ anything in the darkness. "Are you sure?" he asked her. "That doesn't feel right to me."

"We need to cross water," Ryn answered shortly, and pointed again. "That way."

[]

Crossing a river at any time was a hazardous undertaking. Crossing a river in the dark, with sleipniri and a hundred troops, was a nightmare. Also, the water was really cold.

Anakin knew as much about leading sleipniri as his sleipnir did about piloting starships, so another warrior from Ryn's clan stepped forward and took his reins.

"Let him lead the beast," Ryn said when Anakin hesitated. "Brodon is good with sleipniri. You can sit behind me." She patted the saddle she'd just swung into invitingly.

"You sure that's not too much weight?" Anakin asked doubtfully.

Ryn grinned, her white teeth glinting in the starlight. "Oh, but I'm just a little scrap of a thing," she said playfully. That was at least partly true; Ryn had to be the wiriest adult Lorethan he had yet met. "Anyway, Greatheart is strong enough for two - aren't you, my love?"

Anakin took Ryn's hand and let her help him into the saddle behind her. "You really like this beast," he observed, and Ryn laughed softly, running her fingers through the sleipnir's mane.

"Greatheart and I have been through a lot together," she explained quietly. "He was foaled the same year I lost my parents, and I spent hours and hours racing him around the paddock, always losing." She kneed the animal, and he stepped slowly - reluctantly, Anakin thought - into the ford. Ryn shifted as the water mounted, slipping her feet free of the stirrups to hold them clear. "Easy, Greatheart," she crooned. Take your time." She leaned back a little, the tight curve of her bottom rubbing against Anakin's groin as she moved. "Anyway, when I was about seven, Kit picked him for a warsteed. So he was trained and then taken on campaigns with Kit, and if I went, too, then you could usually find us together." She chuckled and patted the sleipnir's neck again. "I can't tell you the times Makesh came and got me out from under Greatheart's hooves. But he never stomped me."

Anakin sucked in a breath as Ryn lifted her knees higher, to rest her bootheels on the front of the saddle and keep them dry. Despite the cold water rushing past his own feet, his groin stirred with interest, feeling the shape of her. _Calm down,_ he instructed his sex sternly; but it didn't do much good.

Ryn noticed and laughed under her breath. "It's just me, Anakin."

"I _know_ it's you," he muttered, blushing furiously as the sleipnir's swimming rolled their hips together again and again.

"So relax. I won't take it personally."

"Oh?" Anakin said, trying to ease his hips back so at least he wasn't poking her in the backside. (It didn't help much.)

Ryn snorted. "Anakin, you're fifteen," she reminded him. "You get hard at the drop of a hat."

Anakin wasn't sure how that was supposed to be reassuring, but it was actually deflating him a little, so he figured he'd take it. "Do - ah - do girls do the same thing?"

"Girls don't even have the same -"

"I mean get excited," Anakin corrected himself quickly. _Force._ "Not ... _that._"

"Oh. Hm." Ryn shook her head. "I don't think so. But I can't really speak from personal experience."

Right. Because her sexual awakening had begun with _him_.

Anakin sucked in a breath as Greatheart heaved himself onto the far bank, leaving the water behind. "Ryn, I'm ... sorry, if I've made your - uh - time more difficult than it had to be."

"It's all right." Ryn grunted once as Anakin tightened his grip on her waist to swing himself down. "I'm just sorry it makes you uncomfortable."

She used the present tense, and that was ... disquieting. Still ... "You don't make me uncomfortable."

He could feel the wash of Ryn's amusement in the Force. "Anakin Skywalker, you lie."

She was almost right, but ... "It's not like that," Anakin said, taking his own mount's reins back from Brodon and following Ryn up the slope into the trees, still speaking in hushed Basic. "I just hate that I make you unhappy."

Ryn cast him a wry grin over her shoulder in a shaft of moonlight. "I guess we're even."

"Yeah." Anakin huffed a laugh that was half-sigh. "Good for us."

Ryn reached back to grip his shoulder briefly. "Hey. Stay with me, here. We can worry about sex some other time."

He smiled back, matching her wry humor. "You mean after we save the galaxy again?"

"Unless you've got something better to do."

Anakin grinned at her and closed his eyes, searching the Force for that sense of _rightness_ that told him which way to go. Opened his eyes and met Ryn's, glinting green in the dimness. Pointed. "That way."

Ryn nodded, tugging Greatheart's reins over one shoulder. "Lead on."


	28. Chapter 28

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not him, nor am I making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

Author's notes: Whew. A two-week hiatus followed by a really short update. Sorry 'bout that. In my defense, I had technical issues and several intrusions of Darth Real Life. Back on track now, I hope ... anyway, this chappie is a bit of an interlude between action bits, so enjoy the lull. Observant readers may also notice a couple of references to ROTJ and Stover's ROTS.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-EIGHT**

They halted for rest in a glade screened by briars. It had an ominous look, but it was more easily defensible than any place they had seen so far.

"Set a watch," Ryn said, "and sleep with one eye open."

She took the first watch as befit a commander, and stood staring back the way they had come, senses straining for any sign of pursuit.

"You should eat something," Anakin said at her shoulder.

Ryn took the dried fruit he handed her and bit into it without looking. "Shouldn't have brought the sleipniri," she observed tersely. "They're more hindrance than help in this wood. I just hated to attack Ardel without cavalry. Stupid."

"Why?" Anakin asked her.

"They get in the way."

"No, I mean: why did you hate to attack Ardel without them?"

"Oh." Ryn chewed and swallowed. "Clan Ardel is said to have the best cavalry force on Loreth. They could cut us to pieces on foot."

"So it's a good thing we have the sleipniri, then."

Ryn shook her head, accepting the canteen he held out. "We can't charge the walls with them. Unless we can get Ardel's forces out in a sortie, it won't help." She swallowed again and handed back the canteen. "Anyway, those of us who march on the main gate are just a distraction. We can't win."

"There's always a way," Anakin encouraged her.

Ryn shook her head and declined to offer her opinion of his optimism. "This _is_ the way," she told him. "As long as you and Evinne are able to break in and take Stevan, the rest of us are expendable."

She heard Anakin's sharp intake of breath. "Ryn, you are _not_ expendable."

"Sure I am," Ryn said. "We all are, except for you and Evinne. She has to take charge of Clan Ardel and you have to find Obi-Wan." She finished the fruit and twisted to meet his eyes. "Anakin, it's okay. I was raised for this. These warrior were trained for it. We'll save as many lives as we can, and the rest of us will die well."

"You talk as if you know you're going to die," Anakin whispered, his eyes wide.

Ryn gripped his shoulder, hard. "Everyone is going to die," She told him firmly. "But nobody knows when. I'm ready, that's all." She tilted her head to indicate the dozing warriors. "So are they."

"Ryn ..."

"_Anakin_." She gave his shoulder a gentle shake. "If ever there were an argument for non-attachment, this must be it." She took a deep breath, to steady both of them. "Beings who do what we do don't live very long," she said slowly. "We have a saying here: _heroes die young_."

"Even stars burn out," Anakin added quietly, remembering something Obi-Wan had told him a few years ago. "I know."

"I don't think you do," Ryn answered. "Because death is not the end. Anakin, sooner or later we are going to lose each other. But I swear to you: whatever it takes, I _will_ find you again. In life, in death, beyond the veil, I will _always_ find you. I swear it, Anakin." She ducked her head to catch his downcast eyes. "Okay?"

"Okay," Anakin muttered. _But I want to save you_ fluttered across the surface of his mind, and Ryn squeezed his arm a little tighter.

"You already have," she told him. "You don't know how many ways you've already saved me."

She let him go and turned back to watch the forest.


	29. Chapter 29

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER TWENTY-NINE**

The lights blinded him as they came on, bright and shocking. Obi-Wan closed his eyes against the assault and waited for the Force to offer guidance.

A hand fisted itself in his hair and hauled him upright.

"So," Omega's voice said, and Obi-Wan squinted painfully to see his smug visage, "let's talk about your future."

_Let's not,_ Obi-wan thought, but his mouth was too dry to speak.

"Young Skywalker," Omega continued, "will not be coming to rescue you. It seems has had met an untimely end, as the reckless so often do. Pity. I had wanted to know him better." He tightened the hand in Obi-Wan's hair. "But you can't always get what you want."

That was inarguably true.

"So," Omega went on, "let's talk about what we _can_ get. Or more precisely: what _I_ can get."

* * *

Anakin took point again as they left the glade. He was tired into his bones, but when he caught Ryn watching in concern, he mustered a smile for her and a quick thumbs-up. Her answering smile - still a little uncertain around the edges, but genuine - warmed his heart and eased the tight knot of anxiety beneath his ribs.

Ryn knew. (Ryn always knew.) But she kept her mouth shut about his weakness, and just gave him a clap on the shoulder before falling into step behind him.

They changed course again, to cross another stream (smaller this time, much to Anakin's relief) and let the sleipniri drink. Then they headed roughly east, following the tug inside Anakin's head that whispered _this way_.

The monsters came upon them in a steep defile, attacking from all sides at once.

"Ambush!" Ryn hissed, and put her hand over Anakin's as he moved to draw his lightsaber. "You can't save us by fighting. Try and find a way out of here."

"I can't just -"

"It's the only way out," Ryn said shortly, grunting as she made her first hit. "I've got your back. Go!"

Anakin drew on the Force and started running. Dimly he was aware of Ryn keeping pace beside him, shouting orders over her shoulder as she hacked their path clear.

If anyone had asked him before tonight, Anakin would have said that the savagely primitive culture of Loreth - all right, he wouldn't have used those words, but the concept was the same - would have hindered them in any attempt to work together in a crisis. That day, they proved him wrong.

They moved as one, and the shapeshifting monsters broke against them like a wave, time and again. Even through the intensity of his focus on _getting out_, Anakin could feel the way they gave themselves over to their leader, yielding to a single will. Ryn's concentration was sharp in the Force beside him, focusing their strength into a nexus of power.

_War leader,_ he thought distantly, irked by the sense that there was something important he was _almost_ grasping. He pushed the feeling aside and drove himself deeper into the Force.

* * *

They ran down the ravine in a series of desperate charges, broken by the weight of their attackers. There were too many of them, they couldn't make it ...

"Your focus determines your reality!" Ryn snapped in his ear, and Anakin gritted his teeth and tried to imagine the monsters falling back before them.

A sense of _immediacy_ tugged at his center, and Anakin turned to scan the area. _There._ He tapped Ryn's shoulder as she stepped in front of him to whirl her blades again and break another surge of attack. "In the cave, quick!"

Ryn shot him a single, distracted glance. "Are you sure?"

Anakin nodded vigorously.

Ryn cursed once under her breath and began shouting orders. Merach and five others turned and started hacking a path up to the cave, and Ryn half-turned to face Anakin, still fighting.

"Get up there!" she panted, struggling against the onslaught. "Find a way out. I'll hold the entrance as long as I can." She stumbled backward and brought her sword up, dispatching another shapeshifter into melting sludge. "If I don't - oof! - if I don't make it, Evinne will take my place as war leader."

"What? Ryn! You're not coming with me?"

"Go!"

The shapeshifters were closing in on them; there was no more time to argue. Ryn shouted and stepped forward, gathering a group of maybe ten others to guard the path. Anakin cast one last glance at her flashing blades and scrambled for the cave.

* * *

He ignited his lightsaber as he stepped inside, mindful that though the Force had promised a way out, there might still be dangers here. Behind him, he could hear the battle-cries of his companions and the ear-rending shrieks of the shapeshifters. A handful of Lorethans spilled in around him; Merach hovered near his shoulder, blade at the ready.

"Do you sense anything?" she asked him, breathing hard. "I don't see an exit."

"Wait," Anakin said. He advanced slowly, lightsaber held aloft to show the way.

At the very back of the cave, he found a chink in the rock, maybe a meter wide and twice that in length. "This way."

Merach leaned past him to examine the opening. "Where does it lead?"

Anakin glared at her. "How should I know?

"You're the Jedi."

"All I know is that it's the only way out of here."

Merach grunted. "That's not much to go on."

"You got a better idea?"

"I just do the heavy lifting."

It ought to be Ryn in here, with him. They were supposed to be in this _together_. But Ryn was outside, defending the entrance and trusting him to lead her people to safety.

Anakin took a deep breath. "This is the way."

Merach shrugged. "All right." She turned and shouted some orders Anakin couldn't understand, and then tapped him on the shoulder. "Let me go first."

"I have to feel the way ..."

"Once we get in there, there's not enough room to get lost." Merach cast him a grim smile in the blue glow of his lightsaber. "Besides, your little dark-haired girl would have my brains for breakfast if I let you come to harm."

"Ryn is _not_ my -"

"We don't have time to argue," Merach said, and ducked into the opening.

* * *

Outside the cave, Ryn stood her ground between warriors she barely knew and shouted at the others to hurry.

The shapeshifters - _Bolg_, a voice whispered in her mind with a shiver of fear - came on in mindless fury. They attacked and died, attacked and died, and Ryn felt the sharp snag of pity in her chest even as she slew.

The poor beasts had no will of their own, but they'd kill her and all the others just the same if they got the chance.

Ryn cursed their dark goddess and raised her guard again.

* * *

Evinne caught her arm as she fled up the hillside with the rest of the rearguard. "Go find Skywalker. I'll take over here."

Ryn shook her head, trying to watch the Bolg and Evinne at once. "Ardel will need you. Go." Evinne hesitated and Ryn shoved her up the path with one hand. "Go!"

Evinne met her eyes for one sharp instant. "I'll make sure Skywalker gets out alive," she said swiftly, and sprinted for the cave without waiting for an answer.

Ryn took another look at the oncoming Bolg and swallowed hard. "Retreat," she told the few companions she had still standing. "We'll make a stand at the mouth of the cave."


	30. Chapter 30

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER THIRTY**

They backed up the slope, one arduous foot at a time, the weight of the Bolg bearin on them in the melee. They had to let the sleipniri go; there was no way to fight and still guide them through the trees, and the poor beasts stood a better chance at escaping on their own. Their owners were doomed anyway. Ryn could feel her reflexes slowing down, dulling her edge.

_Almighty defend us._

They reached the mouth of the cave and ranged themselves in front of it, those who were left.

_Let Anakin get out all right._

Kick, slash, duck, thrust, kick.

_Let me die well._

* * *

Anakin closed his eyes and stretched out with his senses, probing the Force. He could feel Ryn, somewhere behind him, fading too fast. He didn't think she was injured, but she was exhausted; she couldn't last much longer. Pain clawed at his chest - _I can't lose you, Ryn, don't go_ - but Anakin gritted his teeth and hardened his concentration. If he couldn't find the way out of here, none of them would live much longer anyway, and Ryn's death would be in vain.

"Bear right," he hissed to Merach, and she obeyed.

The rumble of falling stone disrupted his thoughts.

* * *

"We can't hold them!" Ryn gasped, staggering backward. Her arms felt leaden, and every muscle ached.

The three who were left spared her furtive glances as they fought on.

"Can't ... stop ... now," Erkha grunted,shoving back another Bolg.

"No," Ryn agreed, breathless. "You're right." They would die fighting. _Not long now._ Had Anakin gotten away? Ryn missed him, painfully. She still ached after their lost bond. Maybe if they had had a little more time ...

_Heroes die young._

Ryn clenched her jaw and struck again, fending off the attack.

Somewhere inside, she reached out for Anakin, wanting to feel his presence one last time.

_Ryn?_ She could sense the edge of his panic, sharp against her psychic shields.

_Sh,_ she told him. _It's all right._

_Ryn!_

_I _will_ find you again. Don't be afraid._

She withdrew gently, mindful of Anakin groping after her. But as she sank back into her own body, sharpening her concentration again, she felt ... something.

Strength, and age: a web of ancient power that was ... _Right overhead?_

There wasn't time to think about it.

"Get farther in!" Ryn shouted to the others, reaching for the tree roots that pierced the roof of the cave. "Run!"

It wasn't that different from what she'd done before, at the funeral pyre. Setting her will on the trees, urging them to do their work faster ...

She let go and sprinted out the mouth of the cave as it fell in behind her.

* * *

"_Ryn!_" Anakin fought against Merach's unyielding grip, trying to turn back even though he knew it wouldn't do any good.

_I'm coming, Anakin._

He froze, groping for that little whisper in the Force. _Ryn?_

_I'm on my way._

She felt ... tense, so Anakin didn't press her further. Whatever had just happened back there, she clearly wasn't out of the woods yet. Well, figuratively speaking. He closed his eyes anyway, sagging in relief. "She's alive," he said thickly, and Merach nodded cautiously in answer, trusting their connection.

"Let's keep moving."

"Right," Anakin said, and pushed off the cave wall to start again.

* * *

Without a place to defend, Ryn was free to run. And she was _fast_.

Before the mission to Coruscant, Areth'ryn Orun had been one of Loreth's best scouts: small an quick and woodcrafty. And dense obstacle courses were her specialty. She tore through the forest now, all her training coming back in a rush of exultation as she gave herself over to the chase, burning ground.

The howls of the pursuing Bolg followed her, thirsty for blood, but they were playing Ryn's game now.

She dove off the path - what there was of one, an old game trail half-covered in bramble - into the first water she could find. Submerged, and let it carry her downstream. Caught herself on a hanging branch and pulled herself into the trees on the other side. Literally into the trees: she swung from one to the other with aching arms, gasping for breath, to keep her damp prints and her scent off the ground.

_I'm coming, Anakin. I'm coming._

* * *

The passage through the rock is long, but Anakin fears it may not be long enough. If those creatures catch their scent again on the other side ...

The only way to go is forward, so Anakin sets his teeth and puts one foot in front of the other.

Side-passages branch off at intervals, most of them not wide enough to walk through. In spite of the Force's reassurance, he can't quite shake the fear that _this_ passage will eventually grow too narrow, as well. But he keeps moving, and the passage remains stable.

It is unimaginably dark in the rock. After the first few steps, Anakin shuts off his lightsaber to conserve power - Force only knows how much he'll need this thing before he gets a chance to replenish the power cell - and he and Merach grope their way forward. It would be easier if Merach would just let him lead - with the Force, he doesn't really need to see - but the hunter is adamant.

"My orders are to protect you at all costs," she says flatly, and Anakin thinks he may kill Ryn later, if he ever finds her again.

_Ryn, please be all right._

He picks up what must have happened to her in bits and pieces from the whispers that make their way forward in the line. Evidently Ryn caused a minor cave-in by pulling down on the tree roots - Anakin remembers seeing some near the front of the cave, but not enough to do that kind of damage; she must have used the Force somehow - and sealed the entrance behind them. Why she wasn't killed in the collapse, he doesn't quite understand.

_What if she's buried alive?_

But when he reaches for her, haunted by the thought, Ryn's presence is dim, as though she's shielding, but he can't pick up the sense of panic that being trapped under rock might trigger, and he is almost sure he senses motion: she's on the move, heading somewhere fast.

_Ryn?_ he nudges her, but the only answer he gets isn't something he can translate into words: just a gentle push of encouragement that, coming from Ryn, might mean damn near anything.

He walks on for maybe five paces before he realizes he's lost Merach. Stops dead and calls her name, trying not to panic.

"Here," she says, her voice a muffled echo but steadier than his. "I think the passage forked."

Anakin bites back a curse. "Don't move," he orders her. "I'm coming to you."

Shuffling back the way he'd come, he finds three more Lorethans and ushers them back beyond the fork before going after Merach, who has collected a few followers of her own.

"Okay," Anakin says, when he has them all back in the main passageway. "Everybody hold still."

Evinne's voice, from the back of the line: "Skywalker! What's going on?"

Three weeks ago, he was a Padawan with no significant responsibilities other than following his Master's instructions and trying to figure out what the Chosen One was supposed to be. Now he's leading a war-band of Lorethan commandos on a military campaign.

"The passage forks!" he yells back, impatient with Evinne's need to know everything _now_, guiltily aware that he'd probably feel the same in her position. "Just hold on, I'm going to check it out."

He ignites his lightsaber again and eases forward, ignoring Merach's protests this time. The light doesn't actually do him much good; he can't see far enough ahead, even with the yield on maximum, to guess at what dangers either passage might ultimately contain. Even the Force doesn't offer much guidance.

"Take a break," he instructs the others. "I'm going to have to meditate."

Meditation has never been his strong suit - or, at least, he has always been more comfortable working his problems out through _moving_ meditations. Sitting still for any length of time makes him restless. But now, with so many lives hanging on his choice, Anakin sinks crosslegged to the stone and closes his eyes, drawing the Force around him like a blanket.

_I'm coming, Master._


	31. Chapter 31

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not him, nor am I making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

Review Replies: IWannaLightsaber: Thank you so much! I'm glad you're enjoying the story! (Signed reviews have received individual replies.)

**CHAPTER THIRTY-ONE**

Scrambling her way down the last steep slope, Ryn caught herself on a tree trunk and leaned against it, gasping for breath. She figured she had made about five miles in Lorethan reckoning, tearing through the forest at a dead sprint. Now she was shaking all over, and her legs felt weak.

_Toughen up, Orun. Five miles is nothing._

But it was five miles over rough ground following a desperate fight following a night march after another fight and a hard day's ride. And Ryn had been tired since at least Borsana Terce. Had it really been a month?

So much had happened since then. Kit was gone, and Obi-Wan was missing, and that thing with Ferus was ... subtle, but good. And Anakin ...

She wanted him as much as ever. But something had changed, after the Healers did their work. Ryn felt _whole_, for the first time since she could remember. There was still pain, but she _owned_ it now. That made all the difference.

A noise off to her right made Ryn drop to a crouch, senses alert. She eased deeper into the underbrush and peered out from ancient fern and bracken.

The only life she could sense nearby, however, was that of the forest: hoary trees and green saplings. The barely-there whisper of fungi, eating away at last year's fallen leaves. Ryn closed her eyes and relaxed her shields a little opening herself to the world around her, searching.

_There._

It wasn't the Bolg - nothing so pernicious - but it didn't belong here, either. Ryn dropped lower and eased forward again, trying not to make a noise.

A snort brought her head up, sharply.

_It can't be._

It was. Greatheart stood stamping and nibbling at the fern, accompanied by maybe half a dozen of his companions.

The relief was dizzying. _I didn't get them killed. Not all of them, anyway._ And if these had survived, others might have done the same. Tracking them down was out of the question, but if they were as close to inhabited areas as Evinne seemed to think, the sleipniri probably had a better chance of finding safety than their masters did.

_Okay. So now I have a mount. Several, actually. What I do not have is my team._

She stepped forward to sot out Greatheart's tangled reins, gathered the other sleipniri with a twist of will, and trudged on.

* * *

Obi-Wan rested his head against the cold metal walls and closed his eyes, reaching for his training bond with Anakin. Groping, really, for any sign that his apprentice was still alive.

All he got was a headache.

Could the Chosen One even be killed? If the prophecy was true, was Anakin destined to fulfill it, no matter what? Or could fate be thwarted somehow?

If Anakin was dead, then surely Ryn was dead, too. And probably Evinne, as well. _Maybe others._ And as plausible as Omega tried to make it, Obi-Wan couldn't quite believee that Anakin had given up on him. That wasn't like Anakin at all. Headstrong, yes; impulsive, sure. Disloyal, never. So if he had been killed ... he'd been trying to get to Obi-Wan. And the person who had the most to lose _there_ was Granta Omega.

_So. No surprises. But what are you going to _do_ about it, Kenobi?_

* * *

Scraped and dirty, Anakin stumbled out of a chink in the rough hillside, blinking at the light. It was dim in the forest as evening drew on; a day ago he would have called it gloomy. But after the absolute lightlessness of the cave, the diffuse, fading sunlight nearly blinded him.

Merach stepped out beside him, shading her eyes with one lean hand. "We've veered to the South," she observed critically, squinting up through the branches.

Anakin shrugged. "I can find the way again," he assured her. "I'm more worried about hte packs we lost when we left the sleipniri behind."

Merach shivered. "Poor beasts," she murmured. "Lost in this gloom. But the good thing is those Bolg aren't likely to bother them. It's us they're after. They only prey on sentient life. Or so the tales say."

"That's encouraging," Anakin muttered, and stepped out of the way, picking a path down the slope so the others could get out of the cave. He couldn't sense the twist of _wrongness_ that had accompanied the shapeshifters - _Bolg?_ - before, but then they had gotten the jump on him twice already.

He closed his eyes and reached deeper into the Force, searching for the bright star of Ryn's presence, but he couldn't find her, either. _Or Obi-Wan._ He swallowed a surge of fear and turned northeast, following the gentle tug inside that whispered _this way_. The others followed him without a word.

* * *

They had gone several kilometers by Anakin's estimation when the trees began to thin, an the bracken on the forest floor began to be interspersed with tufts of new spring grass. The ground beneath their feet canted gently but steadily downhill, and the air smelled sweeter, less musty. They came to a small stream with deep-cloven banks and - remembering Ryn's caution about hiding their scent - crossed it. The water was old from the spring thaws in the distant mountains and sharply clear, and Anain felt new vigor rising through his limbs even as he fought the piercing chill. The stream lead down a long slope in more less the direction they wanted to go, so they followed its banks for a while and let it carry them out of the forest along a gently curving path that traced its way along the rough edges of the rolling hills. Anakin eased his grip on the Force with a sense of relief, relaxing under the lifted burden of constantly feeling his way.

Night came on them while they were still under the shadow of the last trees, but the war-band kept going, eager to get clear of the forest. The banks of the stream widened and sank as more waters trickled in, until it ran almost at their feet, a hurried little river rushing away to find the lowlands. At last it led them out of sight of the trees around a fold of the ground: into a wide, rolling land of hills grassy in the starlight, amidst which the river snaked its way through round-shouldered downs until it was lost to sight.

"It's beautiful," Merach said, and Anakin nodded.

"Let's go as far as that first bend," he suggested. "We can follow it at least a little further from the forest."

Nobody wanted to spend another night with nothing but a rise of the land between them and the darkness beneath the trees, so they wandered downstream to a bend of the river that held a cluster of - far friendlier - trees, their long fronds hanging almost to the water, bright even in the grayscape of night with new spring growth.

"This is as good a place as any to camp," Merach said. "And we all need rest before pushing on. I'd say we might as well stop here for the night. Move on at dawn."

Nobody objected, and without Ryn as a native guide Anakin figured he was in charge, so he nodded. "Make camp."


	32. Chapter 32

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER THIRTY-TWO**

He dreamed of Padmé - of their first meeting, almost, except in the dream he was older than he'd been when it really happened, and Padmé didn't call him a funny little by but a handsome young man. And it wasn't 3PO he showed her when they got back to his room.

She was sweet and soft and everything he'd been missing, and Anakin gave into the relief she offered, asking no questions.

"Padmé!" he gasped, and opened his eyes.

_Not again,_ he thought dismally, feeling the familiar stickiness, but then a disturbance at the center of the camp drew his attention: several Lorethans were standing and talking in low voices, when everyone but the lookout should be sleeping. and he felt ... "Ryn!"

The knot of Lorethans dissolved and a wiry figure stepped out of it, backlit by moonlight. "Hey," said a tired voice. "I thought you were sleeping."

Anakin sat up and squinted at her as she approached. "I was," he admitted. "When did you get here?"

"Just a few minutes ago. I didn't want to wake you." Ryn dropped to her knees next to him, her face finally coming into focus, and gestured at his cloak. "You got room for me?"

_Oh._ Anakin started to panic, realized she was probably just asking because she was cold, and panicked again, because he couldn't exactly say _yes_ under the circumstances.

"Uh, Ryn," he began, "I don't think -"

Ryn must have read something in his face because she cut im off. "Anakin, it's not ... I'm not trying to ... I'm just cold, I swear."

"I know," Anakin said quickly, and saw his rejection slap her across the face.

She rocked back on her heels. "Okay," she said, her weary voice betraying hurt. "I can find someone else. I'm sorry to -"

Anakin made a grab for her, closing his fingers over her wrist as she started to rise. "It's not that," he said quickly, and then faltered. "I just ... you might get kind of ... wet."

Puzzlement etched its way onto Ryn's face. "Do you have a problem with bedwetting?"

_Force. Make this a little harder, why don't you?_

"Uh," said Anakin again. "No. I mean, not like that. You see, sometimes -"

"I'm not going to get wet for you," Ryn interrupted. "I'm too tired."

"Not that either!" Anakin stopped himself and took a deep breath. "What I mean is -"

"Ohhh," Ryn said, interrupting again as understanding washed over her face. "You've been dreaming about Padmé again."

Anakin could feeling the blush setting fire to his skin. "Yeah," he admitted, wondering why he felt compelled to explain. "Um. Vokara Che says the - the only way to be one hundred percent safe is to avoid all contact with ... you know ..."

"Got it," Ryn said with a grimace. "But just ... sleep with your back to me, or something. It's what Kit used to do."

"Wait. Your _brother_ ..."

"He was just seventeen when I went to live with him," Ryn explained, nudging Anakin over so she could snuggle under the edge of his cloak. "And he took lovers to bed, sometimes, but ... not enough, I guess."

Anakin gave up trying to understand Ryn's matter-of-fact response to her brother's behavior and eased himself down with his back to her. "Maybe you should have gotten separate beds," he suggested, and felt Ryn's shrug.

"It didn't bother me much," she offered. "And he usually remembered to send me away if he was going to do anything ... you know ... on purpose."

She wrapped one arm around his ribs, hugging him close, and Anakin closed his eyes at the forbidden intimacy. "How did you escape those creatures?" he asked her, putting his hand over her cold fingers.

"I outran them."

Anakin raised his eyebrows, even though Ryn couldn't possibly see. "Just like that?"

"It's not much of a story," Ryn conceded. "But yeah. Pretty much like that. Oh, and I found the sleipniri."

"What?"

"Well, a lot of them, anyway. Evinne has sent some people to round them up and get their saddles off for what's left of the night."

"Wait. They're _here_?"

"As many as I could gather," Ryn said. "There were several who made their own way out of the forest and came to join the others. Handy."

"But how did you -"

Ryn tightened her arm around him. "Anakin. I haven't slept in days. I'm exhausted. Can we please do this later?"

"Oh," said Anakin, remembering that he was tired, as well. "Yeah, okay. Sure."

"Thank you." Ryn curled against him, breathed out a long slow sigh, and was asleep.

* * *

She woke with a groan, every muscle aching. "Ugh."

Anakin shifted, breaking her hold on him. "G'morning," he muttered, sounding less than happy about it.

"Mmm," Ryn answered, still too groggy to make sense of her surroundings. _Warm. Want you._ She closed her eyes against the early sunlight and settled closer against her companion, running her free hand over his chest in sleepy appreciation.

"Ryn." Anakin pried her fingers loose and held them gently in his. "_Ryn._ We have to get up."

"Mmhmm." But the lure of sleep was stronger, pulling her back into dreams.

Soft laughter tickled her ear. "Ryn, you sleepy thing, wake up. We have to go."

That was Anakin's voice, amused but insistent. Ryn shivered in the draught as he shifted out of her arms again. Dragged her eyes open, blinking resentfully at the day. "Unnfff."

Anakin laughed again, and leaned closer to breathe lightly on her face.

"Mmph! Whazzatfr?"

"To wake you up," Anakin answered, his voice still rough with sleep. The husky timbre awakened nerve endings, but failed to make her enthusiastic about getting up. "You know, you're kind of cute like this."

Ryn didn't answer, too distracted by the feel of his fingers on her cheek, brushing tangled hair out of her face. She closed her eyes and leaned into his touch, just a little. With her eyes shut, she could almost pretend they were the only ones here. That he was touching her this way because ... wait. Why _was_ he touching her, exactly?

_That's a little more than friendly,_ Ryn thought, and opened her eyes again.

Anakin was staring back at her, his own eyes wide with startled feeling.

"Anakin?" she asked hoarsely, but she could see that he didn't know what he was doing any more than she did.

He traced the curve of her cheek with a calloused thumb. "Do you always wake up like this?"

Ryn wasn't entirely sure what he meant by that, but oddly enough she knew the answer: "Only with you."

Anakin's blue eyes darkened with something she couldn't quite grasp. "What do you want from me?"

Ryn opened her mouth, a flip answer at the ready: _I want you to let me up._ But that _something_ in his eyes froze the words in her throat. "I want you to forget about destiny."

"What?" said Anakin. He sounded stunned.

Ryn hitched a breath, tasting Anakin's scent in the back of her throat. _Okay, I really didn't think this through._ "Master Yoda said something about you that stuck with me," she began - falteringly, aware that bringing up Yoda probably wasn't the best way to get Anakin on her side. "He said ... he said you were always looking away, to the future." She swallowed hard, forcing back tears as the morning noises of the camp stirred around them. "He was right. You're always telling me _no_ because you think it's your destiny to be a Jedi, or find Padmé again, or some other thing. And maybe it's all true. But that's the future, right? And I'm here _now_." Her breath stuttered in her chest, a broken thing. "I want you now, even if it's not forever."

She couldn't make herself meet his eyes - and, anyway, what else was there to say? Ryn rolled away to her feet and then froze, feeling his hand close over her wrist.

"_What?_" she asked him irritably, tensed for another rejection.

Anakin gazed steadily into her face. "Always _now_, even eternity will be," he quoted softly, and Ryn felt her heart thud hard in her chest.

"What?" she asked again, barely a whisper.

"Something else Yoda said."

(Years later, she will remember this as the moment when everything started to change.)


	33. Chapter 33

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars, so I'm out in the cold. I'm not even making any profit from this work of fan fiction, though I am enjoying it far more than I should …

**CHAPTER THIRTY-THREE**

They got the rest of the sleipniri and started off again around midmorning. They had lost a few, but then they had lost riders, too: their troop was down to seventy, hardly enough to stage a reasonable threat to Ardel's stronghold, if Evinne's assessment was worth anything. Ryn wouldn't talk about it: she kept moving with the single-minded determination of a being who has no hope left, just the will to keep going anyway. But Anakin knew the deaths hung heavy on her, that as their leader she felt responsible. _She _is_ responsible._

It was appalling to realize that his best friend, who was currently thirteen years old, had just led forty beings to their deaths and was still leading more into battle, and it wasn't even the first time.

_Padmé wasn't much older when she led her people in the Battle of Naboo_.

But that had seemed different, somehow. Padmé Amidala had been larger than life, a force of nature, an angel. Ryn was ... sharp and resilient and determined, but she was also _young_. And she didn't have - wouldn't want - Jedi advisors. Unless you counted Anakin,but he was just a Padawan, and so far he hadn't given any advice.

It was _different_, too, because Padmé hadn't known the people who died in the batle. She had held a public memorial for the dead freedom fighters, and the humans and Gungans who were killed during the occupation, but that had been Queen Amidala's duty, not Padmé's loss. She had been sorry for their deaths, but it wasn't the same. Ryn had known some of these people since she was a little girl.

Anakin couldn't help wondering: how hard did you have to be, to keep ordering your friends to their deaths?

[]

With sleipniri and riders alike exhausted, the day's travel went slower than Ryn would have liked. They had salvaged enough food from the packs to make a decent breakfast, but their supplies were still critically low: many of the packs had been torn, or gotten wet, and their contents damaged. They all needed rest, but lacked the resources to spend even a day more than necessary reaching Ardel's stronghold.

There had been no sign of the Bolg since leaving the forest, but Ryn found herself less than sanguine about the chances of escape. As far as she knew, Bolg had no special attachment to trees, nor any territorial leanings - though, to be fair, all the Bolg raids she'd ever heard of took place far to the North, on the mainland. In her lifetime, anyway.

She held a whispered consultation with Evinne about it.

"No," the gold-haired woman said, "I never heard of them on our land - not since the days of the Great War. Clan Ardel lived mostly farther to the East then." She shifted in the saddle. "I can't imagine how they got so far South without being seen."

"Underground," Ryn said grimly, remembering the holes in the hills. Anakin and the war-band had escaped through one because they were able to block the opening. If they hadn't ...

"But if they've been hunting -"

"I don't think they have," Ryn cut in. Evinne looked puzzled. "I think they've been hunting _us_."

"Us?" Evinne glanced around, as though she might find them listening. "The Bolg have no interest in Lorethan politics."

"No," Ryn agreed, lowering her voice, "but the Dark Goddess might have an interest in the Chosen One."

To her credit, Evinne did not turn and look at Anakin. "We have told no one."

"He has great power," Ryn said. "And Omega knew."

Evinne's face went a couple of shades whiter. "Are you suggesting -"

"I haven't suggested anything," Ryn said sharply. "But the pieces fit better than I like."

Evinne's lips were tight. "We are not sorcerers in Clan Ardel," she said stiffly. "Just because my grandfather was flagrantly irresponsible does _not_ mean his descendants are engaged in some dark conspiracy."

"That's true enough," Ryn answered. "But your grandfather's advisor survived the burning." Evinne glared. "Do you have another story?"

They rode on in silence.

[]

They rode over the plains, occasionally disrupted by upthrusts of tumbled rock. This was the land of Clan Ardel: they had come to the grassy treeless country of rolling hills where Evinne was born, and she took the lead now, weaving a path between scattered hamlets to conceal their presence.

They camped for the night beside a small stream with the scrubby trees along its banks, the only things of their kind in sight.

"Good cover," Ryn concurred when they drew rein overlooking the stream. The younger Lorethan shaded her eyes and squinted east. "Is that smoke?"

"No avoiding it now," Evinne said tersely. "There are villages scattered between here and the rath. The best we can manage is to skirt around them, if we're lucky."

Ryn growled a little through her teeth. But: "It can't be helped," she agreed reluctantly. "We light no fires tonight."

"It might serve as some protection if we are attacked again," Merach pointed out, at her other side.

"Or it might draw attention - from enemies and the curious," Ryn countered. "No, Merach, we light no fires tonight. Let the others no."

"As you will, _Athelan_."

"Not so far," Ryn muttered as Merach wheeled her sleipnir to ride back down the line.

Evinne studied her profile in the fading light. "Will it offend you if I say you're better than I expected?"

The corner of Ryn's wide mouth turned up. "That wouldn't have been hard."

Evinne had to smile back. "All right, then. You're better than your lack of experience would suggest."

Ryn shrugged, eyes still scanning the horizon. "Kit didn't know how to raise a little girl. But he had a fair idea how to train a warrior."

"A leader," Evinne amended, and Ryn shifted her shoulders in a youthful shrug.

"I hope so, for their sake." She didn't glance back at the double column behind her, but she didn't have to.

Anakin leaned over his mount's neck to speak to them. "How much longer until we reach your castle?"

"Not a castle," Evinne corrected. "Dun."

Skywalker just looked at her.

Evinne sighed, relenting. "Before sundown tomorrow."

Ryn twisted in the saddle, resting one hand on her slender thigh. "We'd do better to hole up somewhere and come in under cover of darkness."

"There's nowhere to 'hole up', as you put it, but here," Evinne answered. "And if we wait for nightfall, the gates will be shut against us."

Ryn frowned. "Surely they'll bar the doors when they see us coming anyway?"

"Maybe," Evinne said, "maybe not. I've been thinking ..."


	34. Chapter 34

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FOUR**

"I've got a bad feeling about this," Ryn said late the next afternoon as they filed out of a pathetic excuse for a gully, the partly-hidden saddle between two low hills.

"If you've got a better idea, now's the time," Evinne answered sourly.

"If I had a better idea, I wouldn't be doing this!" Ryn snapped back, her nerves clearly fraying.

"That was my point." There were bees humming in her belly, but Evinne forced a smile. "Cheer up, Shorty: for once we have a plan that doesn't involve getting you captured and beaten half to death."

Ryn's mouth tightened. "But those plans _worked_."

"There's just no pleasing you," Evinne said, and caught the edge of the younger girl's reluctant grin. "Anyway, there aren't enough of us to pull off our original plan."

"I still don't like it," Ryn muttered. But she gathered the reins and kneed her mount to action anyway.

[]

They urged the sleipniri to a trot and surged out over the hills, skylining themselves now instead of trying to hide. Swept past the last village without slowing. Kicked their mounts and cantered up the rocky slope toward the ancient seat of Clan Ardel, the dun set on the highest point of land for a day's ride in any direction.

Evinne kept a rhythm in the saddle, belying her nervousness, the hum of bees in her stomach. Beside her Ryn rode like a champion: her hands steady, her green eyes watchful. Behind her rode Skywalker, golden as the god of some forgotten tribe. Evinne could sense his tensions, but he was doing a better than average job of staying focused. Merach rode beside him, having unofficially adopted the young Padawan. Makesh she couldn't see; he was at the back of the column, acting as rearguard with an Orun warrior. It made sense to have him there, watching their backs, but Evinne couldn't help thinking she might have felt better with him at her side.

They swept through the gates without slowing and pounded over the grass-grown cobblestones to the door of the great house where Evinne had spent her childhood. There the doorwards challenged them.

"You ride with strange company, Aesin'Evinne," said old Hadoc.

"My company is my own to keep," Evinne answered, and laid her hands to the doors. They were heavy, but they yielded before her as she thrust them inward, with a creak like the cry of her grandfather turning in his grave.

_Take that, my lord._

Ryn and Anakin stepped up to flank her on either side, gripping swordhilts with the casual readiness of hunting cats. Someone forestalled the houseguards' protests with a few neat blocks, but the three of them ignored what was going on behind, focused on the family lounging about the dais at the far end of the hall. They picked up speed as they moved, evading all attempts to shut them down.

Stevan reacted first, barking for his lieutenants. Ryn on her left and Anakin on her right intercepted them, so close they might have choreographed it, a quick under-over-under move as they turned that sent their attackers' weapons flying, unharmed. It also served as an alarming display of dexterity: there weren't many beings, on Loreth or anywhere else, who could have pulled off that move against Stevan's mercenaries. He prided himself on hiring the best.

"Father," Evinne said clearly, "we need to talk."

Her father straightened in his thronelike chair. "I have no words for traitors, or those who disobey their lords."

Evinne felt her jaw tighten. It was like every argument they'd ever had, all over again. _No, it's not. This time is different._ She signalled to Merach, and the warriors of Clan Orun fanned out, surrounding the dais. "It is my brother who is a traitor," she announced, casting her eyes briefly to the man who stood behind her father's shoulder. "And you who have fostered his treachery." She drew the cord bearing Sarta's ring from about her neck and held it to the light. "By the authority of the high Prince, I remove you from the lordship." Her gaze hardened as she looked past him to Stevan. "And _you_ from this house."

"If I am deposed, my daughter, the lordship passes to my firstborn child." Aharu Ardel's eyes flicked right, to Stevan's hand resting on the back of his chair. "Not you."

"Stevan has been declared unfit to hold the sovereignty," Evinne answered flatly. "He will be taken to the High Court, where he will stand trial for abduction, conspiracy to murder, and treason."

"I have done no such -"

"Save it for the High Council," Evinne told him. She glanced sideways at Ryn and added, "But I think you may find some things hard to explain." Stevan was staring to Evinne's left in consternation. _My brother, you have a tell. _"No doubt you remember my friend, Areth'ryn Orun."

Ryn stepped forward so that the light from the setting sun fell on her face. "Stevan," she said, baring her teeth in a vicious grin. "I haven't had a chance to thank you for all you sent me on Coruscant."

"What?" Aharu said, craning his neck to look at his son.

Stevan's handsome face turned gray. "You're not - you can't -" He shifted his gaze to Evinne, pointing wildly at Ryn. "What are you doing with _her_?"

Evinne felt her lips quirk, remembering the running joke she kept hearing between Orun and Skywalker: "Saving the galaxy," she said, and caught a hint of Anakin's grin out of the corner of her eye.

Stevan glanced from side to side, eyes flickering madly as he tried to calculate the odds. Then: "Guards!" he cried, and sprang from the dais.

_Too slow_. Ryn was on him before he cleared the steps. She caught him one-handed by the throat and flung him to the floor, pinning him there. "Give me a reason," she urged him, still with that bloodthirsty grin.

"You scare me sometimes," Evinne muttered at her, keeping one eye on her father.

There was a second's taut silence while Stevan's men realized that while they could undoubtedly take Ryn, there was no way they reach her faster than she could kill their master. Skywalker fell into a fighting stance Evinne recognized as Soresu, watching the room.

Aharu surveyed the situation dispassionately for a moment before turning his eyes on his daughter. "You can't possibly expect to hold the entire dun against our combined forces."

"I expect to _take command_ of your forces," Evinne corrected him. "The warriors of Clan Ardel can follow me as well as you. As for the mercenaries ... if they attack, the two of you will not survive to pay them." She looked straight into his eyes, and forced her voice to level. "It is over, Father. You have lost." She held out her hand. "Give me your sword."

He struck, but like Stevan he was too slow: Skywalker's lightsaber met his blade an instant before it would have severed his daughter's hand. Aharu had fine style, but he lacked Skywalker's power; a slap of the boy's foot to the ankle and a quick twist of his lightsaber wrenched the older man's sword free.

"Thanks," Evinne told him, as he tossed her the weapon. She glanced from Aharu to Stevan. "Now. Where is Granta Omega?"


	35. Chapter 35

Disclaimer: George Lucas owns Star Wars. I am not making any profit from this work of fan fiction.

Author's note: This is the final chapter of _Hunters_. The next story in the series will be titled either _Warlord_ or _Warlords_ (what? I'm indecisive!), and its first chapter should be up within the next few days. Thanks to everyone who has reviewed this story throughout its progress, and thanks especially to LJ's attanagra and FFN's very own estora, who beta'ed this chapter. Any mistakes left are my own. And, as always, I love feedback! :)

**CHAPTER THIRTY-FIVE**

It was after midnight before they finally got the place locked down.

"The last of the mercenaries have been booted out," Ryn said, and Evinne raised her head to study the younger girl as she paced down the length of the great hall toward her, practically staggering with weariness. "I sent a few warriors under Merach to keep an eye on them and make sure they don't harm the villagers."

"Thanks," Evinne said numbly, still staring at her. "How old are you, Shorty?"

"Thirteen," Ryn said, giving her an odd look - probably because Evinne should know this already.

"Thirteen." She sat still for a moment, watching Ryn's shadowed face in the torchlight. "On any other world you'd have a damn curfew. And tonight you helped to take down one of the most powerful men on this planet, only to cap your evening by banishing a crowd of angry, highly trained warriors for hire."

Ryn shifted her weight. "I did okay. I think."

"You always do okay," Evinne told her. "That's not the point."

Ryn frowned at her. "Then what is?"

"Did you know I was your age when my father tried to marry me to the highest bidder?"

Ryn hesitated, just for a second. "I'd heard," she said finally, her eyes wary.

"Does that seem right to you?"

"I am sorry for your pain."

"_That's not what I asked!_"

Ryn flinched at her volume. "We are _athelan_."

"Like that makes it okay! Don't you ever want more?"

Ryn lowered her eyes. "I've only ever wanted one thing."

"Oh, _fuck_ Skywalker." Evinne regarded her irritably. "Until you met him, you didn't have the _personality_ to want anything else."

Ryn jerked as though Evinne had slapped her. "I know," she admitted quietly. "This is what I am." She glanced up cautiously to meet Evinne's eyes. "What do you want me to say?"

"Saints, Ryn, I don't know." Evinne gestured helplessly. "Maybe that there is something _wrong_ with a society that raises some of its members from birth to be sacrifices for the rest?"

"I think all societies do that," Ryn said. "Whether they admit it or not." She bit her lip. "And ... I'm willing, you know ... to be taken for them."

Evinne closed her eyes against the girl's sheer earnestness. "I know you are, Shorty. But you shouldn't have to be." She pushed off the table and came to stand in front of Ryn, gripping the younger girl's wiry shoulders. "There is something _wrong_ with a world that would give you up."

Ryn shifted uncertainly in her grip. "You left, too."

"Yeah," Evinne said. "I ran away to escape my fate. You were _given away_ to the Jedi."

"I didn't mind so much."

"That's not the point!"

Ryn blinked at her anxiously. "You keep saying that," she pointed out. "But -"

"This is wrong!" Evinne dropped her hands from Ryn's shoulders and turned away, trying to breathe. "Something is _wrong_ with Loreth, Ryn. What happened to us happens to kids _every day_ here." She scrubbed at her face with dirty hands. "I know you were willing to give yourself up, because ... because you are one of the few truly good people I know. But I wasn't. A lot of young _athelan_ aren't. And if ... now that I'm here, if I turn around and do to someone else what was done to me ... how have I made anything better?"

Ryn shuffled her feet. "I don't know," she said. "I don't really ... think about these things."

Evinne huffed a rueful sigh and sat down on the edge of the table again, bracing her palms against its sharpness. "That's because you're a good little _athelan_."

"Or because I'm afraid." Ryn folded her arms, studying the floor. "I've had ... the kind of life that doesn't bear a lot of thinking about."

Evinne snorted a surprised life. "Yeah, I hear that."

Ryn leaned one hip against the edge of the table, frowning in thought. "So ... you want to change things," she concluded. "How?"

Evinne sighed and leaned closer to nudge Ryn's shoulder with her own. "I have absolutely no idea."

* * *

Dawn rose swiftly over the rolling hills, gray sky turning to rose and gold and finally fading toward blue. Anakin stood still on a rise of the land, watching the multihued glory of Loreth's sunrise.

The vividness of the colors reminded him in some ways of Naboo, especially the richness of the green plant life. Loreth evidently was a place lush with chlorophyll-fueled photosynthesis. But her sky was darker than Naboo's, and the wide green plains were broken by the gray bones of the hills far more often than in Naboo's meadow country. This world was _young_ - almost painfully bright and keen, the rawness of the land not yet worn mellow by wind and rain and the passage of time.

"Anakin?"

Ryn's voice. There was so much between them now - they'd come a long way from that day when Obi-Wan had put them together to study Ryn's reactions.

"Your planet is beautiful."

"Thank you." Ryn scuffed the toe of her boot in the grass. "I haven't been to the grasslands much. Grew up in the mountains."

They weren't _really_ mountains, not compared to Alderaan or some other worlds, but certainly they were a different kind of country. "Those are pretty, too."

"Thanks." Ryn cleared her throat. "Anyway, there's no sign of Omega here."

"But he has definitely _been_ here," Evinne's voice added, and Anakin finally turned around to look at them. "People remember him. They just can't tell us where he went."

Ryn blew out a breath that lingered in the cool morning air. "It would help if we knew what he wanted with Loreth in the first place. Even if he's working with Zan Arbor, as Obi-Wan suspected, plant samples don't seem like enough."

Evinne frowned. "If he is as obsessed with the Force as the Jedi seem to think, maybe that's not it at all."

"What?" Anakin jerked his eyes to her face. "I _knew_ I felt the Force more strongly here. How many Lorethans are Force-sensitive?"

Evinne closed her eyes. "All of us."

"_What?_" said Anakin again. "How -"

"_Evinne!_" Ryn hissed, glaring at the older girl. "What are you doing? Telling a _Jedi_?"

"It's just Skywalker," Evinne protested feebly.

"If anyone finds out that he knows, he'll be killed!"

"I'm surprised you haven't told him yourself!"

"_I am not a traitor!_"

"Whoa," said Anakin, raising his hands in the face of their rapidly-increasing ire. "Hold on. Nobody's a traitor, okay? I'm not going to tell anybody, so your secret is safe." Although why Ryn didn't trust him to begin with was a question that hurt to think about. _Save Obi-Wan now, worry about Ryn later._ "Evinne is right: we have to share information if we're going to figure out what Omega is planning." _And now _I'm_ the voice of reason._

Ryn stared at him, her face tight with something that looked a lot like anger but that Anakin knew her well enough to recognize as fear. "If the Jedi find out about our Force-sensitivity, they will come here," she said, in a choked little voice. "They will try to take us by force. I know you think they won't, but they will. They'll say it's for the greater good, that they need to _understand_ in order to better serve the Republic, but that won't make it right. We do not belong to your Republic, and I can't let that happen to my people. I can't let Loreth's children be treated like that."

"The Jedi are _good_, they would never -"

"They _tortured_ me, Anakin!" Ryn's eyes were bright with tears. "They strapped me down and _hurt_ me just to see how I would handle the pain!" She dragged in an unhappy breath, reaching for him. "I know there are good Jedi. Obi-Wan is probably the most genuinely decent man I have ever met -"

"Hey!" Anakin objected, trying and failing to coax a real smile. It cut too deep, the reminder of what she had revealed on Fjornel. He _still_ couldn't believe Vokara Che would do something like that. But on the other hand ... he couldn't believe Ryn would lie, either. He could _feel_ her sincerity, fueling her desperation. She felt _lost_, so unlike her usual groundedness that Anakin felt adrift, too.

"But Obi-Wan isn't in charge," Ryn went on, at least sounding a little calmer. "And he's so brainwashed into doing whatever the Councils tells him that I can't even be sure of what _he_ would do, much less any of the other Jedi. Why do you think Yoda objected so strongly to accepting you for training? Not because you were too old to learn the ways of the Force. _Because you were too old to forget how to think for yourself._ You know it's true."

It sounded uncomfortably like his own thoughts sometimes. Even more awkwardly like some things Palpatine had said. "I don't think -"

"I want your word that you won't tell anyone," Ryn said over him. "Not even Obi-Wan."

"I already said -"

"_Swear it._"

Something in the way she said that set his teeth on edge. "And if I won't?"

Ryn laid a hand on her sword-hilt. "I'll kill you before I let you betray Loreth."

Anakin didn't even remember drawing his lightsaber. "You could try," he challenged her.

"What the hell is wrong with the two of you?" Evinne demanded, interposing between them as Anakin moved his thumb to rest over the activation switch. "We don't have time to fight each other, we've got _real_ problems!" She looked from one to the other, exasperation rolling off her in waves. "Shorty,_ put that thing away._ Skywalker, for stars' sake just give her your oath. Unless you're planning to tell the Council, it shouldn't cause you much anxiety."

"_She should trust me!_" The words hurt his throat.

"Unfortunately she's known too many of your fellow Jedi," Evinne answered tartly. "And you're not making it any easier."

"I thought we were friends!" he shouted over her shoulder at Ryn. After all they'd been through together ...

"So did I!" Ryn shot back. She was taut, ready: and _angry_, in a wildly unfocused way that was so unlike the Ryn he knew that Anakin faltered, suddenly unsure what they were fighting about.

"Ryn," he began uncertainly, but he was cut off.

"_We don't have time for this!_" Evinne snapped. "Skywalker! I don't care how hurt your feelings are, just _swear the damn oath._" Anakin opened his mouth to protest, but Evinne rode right over him. "Ryn has catered to enough of your idiosyncrasies. You can do this for her or _get the hell off my planet_ and I'll go after Obi-Wan myself, because he damn well deserves better than this foolery." She glared disparagingly at Ryn. "_Put up your fucking sword_, or I am going to take it away from you until you learn _not to pull it on your friends_." Ryn put the sword away - a little grudgingly, Anakin thought - and Evinne turned to face him again. "All right, Skywalker. If you really don't intend to sell us out, then you ought to have no trouble with the oath."

"You ought to believe me anyway," Anakin muttered, anger still burning hot in his chest.

"But Shorty wants a formal oath, and it won't kill you, so let's go."

"I swear I will tell no one of Loreth's Force-sensitive population."

"There." Evinne nodded briskly. "Are you satisfied, Areth'ryn?"

"No," said Ryn, shakily. "But it will do, for now."

That sounded ominous, but Evinne seemed willing to let it pass - and she was right about Obi-Wan deserving better, so Anakin gritted his teeth and did the same.

_Later,_ he promised her silently, and caught Ryn's spare nod of acknowledgement.

"Next order of business," Evinne said, ignoring the byplay. "If Omega isn't here with his patron, where is he?"

Ryn cleared her throat. "I might have an idea about that," she said. "But you're not going to like it."

"I never do," Evinne said. "Spit it out."

"If I understand correctly, then Omega is fascinated by power, in any form," Ryn said, glancing to Anakin for confirmation. "But we all know the real power here is not _on_ Loreth, but _in_ it, beneath the planet's surface."

Evinne's eyes widened. "If you're right, the entire galaxy could be in danger."

"After the bolg?" Ryn said. "I do not doubt my guess. And your wise-woman's apprentice has been gone some six weeks."

"Then we have to assume the worse," Evinne concluded, with a grimace that Anakin guessed might be for the apprentice. She actually looked rather ill. "All the armies of Loreth scarcely sufficed to confine Khalî the last time. And we are weaker now by far."

"I know," said Ryn. "But we can't just -"

"Wait," Anakin interrupted. "Who or what is a Khalî?"

The two girls looked at each other in unhappy silence. At last Ryn sighed.

"There is a hole in the North of the world," she said slowly. "There dwells the Dark Goddess we call Khalî: a being of extraordinary power, whose only joy is destruction. She was driven there over a thousand yeas ago, by Ethyn's grandsire. The Temple and the Rangers between them have served to keep her pinned there, below the surface, ever since."

That sounded uncomfortably like the beginning of another Lorethan folktale - _or more like a dozen, maybe_ - but evidently Ryn was willing to let the short version serve for now.

"If Omega craves power, that is where he will find it - more than is good for him," Evinne continued. "Even the ghosts of Korriban cannot match her. Though I have heard tales, of a world in Wild Space ..." She trailed off, looking at Ryn, who shook her head.

"Let's not worry about that now," she said succinctly. "If we can deal with the trouble in our own backyard, it will be work enough."

"More than enough," Evinne said. "The bolg are only the beginning."

"You mean the shapeshifters?" Anakin said. "What have they got to do with it?"

"Khalî controls them," Evinne answered grimly. "We don't know how."

"It doesn't matter," Ryn said. "Defeat Khalî, and the rest will fall with her."

"We _can't_ defeat her," Evinne said. "Not even all the tribes, united under Edhrel Ar-dain, could do more than driver her underground."

"Wait," said Anakin again. "You think Omega has gone to this ... this _hole in the North of the world_? With Obi-Wan?"

They glanced at each other. "There's no way of telling whether he took Kenobi or not," Evinne answered carefully. "But he is not here, so ... maybe. It is said that in the Dark Days, Khalî's servants used to offer her _ylfe_ as sacrifices - sentient beings."

"And you think he - _Obi-Wan_ ..." Anakin fought for breath. "No! I'm not giving up now! I'm going after Obi-Wan! Alone, if I have to."

"Not alone," Ryn said, resting one hand on his shoulder. "I will go with you anywhere - even into the pits of Khalî." She managed a shaky half-smile, reassurance that whatever their fight had been, at least it wasn't the end. "I'm still your warlord, remember?"

Anakin wasn't sure whether to kiss her or tell her to make up her damn mind.

Evinne gripped his other shoulder, hard. "Count me in," she said roughly.

The morning breeze lifted their hair and blew it out, black and golden against the colors of earth and sky. Anakin tried to speak and found his throat too choked for words.

Evinne saved him by speaking first. "So, Warlord," she said, glancing at her dark-haired counterpart, "what are your orders?"

Ryn took a deep breath. "Light the beacons, sound the horns, and send a rider to the High King. And find me every wise-woman, soothsayer, and hedge-witch within a day's ride."

"What?" said Evinne, startled. "Why?"

There was a wild light in Ryn's eyes. "We are going to raise the land against them."

"_What?_" said Evinne again. "Ryn, you can't. Nobody has managed it in over a thousand years - if it was ever more than a legend! It can't be done!"

"I know," said Ryn calmly. "I'm going to do it anyway."

"Are you out of your mind? You can't -"

"Send for them," Ryn said. She was already moving, heading down the slope to catch the trail that led up to the dun. "Anakin, I need you to tell me everything you know about battle meditation."

"_Battle meditation?_" Anakin said, turning to keep pace with her. "But those are just stories -"

"Tell me anyway."

"Ryn," said Evinne, pleading, "the last person who tried what you want to do went _mad_."

"I'm already there," Ryn said, not breaking stride.

"Oh ... hell," Evinne said, and fell into step beside them.

_We're coming, Obi-Wan._


End file.
